Sins of the Mothers
by JudasFm
Summary: Sequel to Caves of the Ancients. Tails and Knuckles' life on Angel Island is disrupted suddenly when a blast from Knuckles' past turns up with a cryptic warning. Desperate, Tails sets out to ask Sonic for help, but Sonic has his own problems. Please R&R!
1. Unholy Alliance

**Author's Note: This story follows on from my earlier fic _Caves of the Ancients_. If you haven't read that, then some things here might not make complete sense (and I'm too lazy to summarise so you'll just have to go read _Caves_ and possibly its prequel _Secrets of the Emeralds _if you want to understand everything ;) Go on...please:P)**

"Kill them." The speaker – a jackal – leaned forward in his chair, eyes glittering. The other two in the room remained silent, and the jackal spoke again.

"Kill them," he repeated, a note in his voice that wavered somewhere between pleading and desire.

There was a long silence.

"No." This person was female, but it was hard to tell any more than that in the darkness. "We may need them."

The jackal sneered at her. "Are you sure you're not just saying that for old times' sake?" He got to his feet and hobbled around the table to stand just behind the speaker; he'd suffered a severe hip injury which hadn't yet been seen to. "I have to say, Daimeri, you seem to have slipped a little. Are you sure you still have the stomach for this?"

There was a flash of metal and the jackal yelped, swearing viciously as the one called Daimeri pocketed the small knife again, smirking.

"My stomach isn't your concern, little cub, and may I remind you that you came to _us_ with an offer."

"You want Sonic, don't you?"

"Robotnik wants Sonic." Daimeri gestured towards the third person, who had remained silent for the whole conversation. "What's he ever done to you?"

"Let's just say it's a family matter, shall we? Sonic has something of mine. He poisoned my own brother, turned him against me. I want to, shall we say, show him the error of his ways? I'll help you find and catch Sonic and then let you keep him while I take care of my brother."

"Interesting." Daimeri pulled out another knife and toyed with it idly, tilting it so the blade caught what little light there was in the room. "So tell me...Raker, wasn't it? Yes. Tell me, Raker, what makes you think that you can succeed where Robotnik failed?"

"He didn't fail last time," Raker retorted. Interest flared in Daimeri's eyes.

"No, he didn't. But how did you find that out?"

Raker shrugged. "I make it my business to find these things out. The point is, you succeeded once, which proves that Sonic's not invulnerable."

"Yes." Robotnik spoke up for the first time. "Unfortunately, I rather doubt that we can count on the same break again, unless the spiny little rodent is stupid enough to try firing himself out of a giant cannon three miles above ground level a second time."

"People have done stupider things."

"Not without some form of illegal substance."

Raker shook his head. "Look. I have a plan."

"Oh, he has a _plan_," Daimeri said derisively. "Well, now I'm convinced."

The jackal ignored her, not least because he knew she could take out both his eyes and laugh while she did it.

"Well, I don't see either of you coming up with any bright ideas. Sonic doesn't see me as a serious threat and he claims to hate hurting innocent bystanders. If I send two of my people in, they grab him, you swing by and pick him up and I take my little brother home with me. I've missed him, you know."

"Then you should learn to hit straighter," Daimeri quipped, not missing a beat.

"There'll be time enough for all that when I get him back," Raker said grimly. "I help you get Sonic, you let me keep the brat who's with him. What could either of you want with a ten year old jackal, anyway? You'll have to do something about his friends though," Raker added. "If word gets out to that damn echidna...he doesn't like my brother, which proves he's not as dumb as he looks, but he'll help Sonic."

"Leave him to me," Robotnik said pleasantly. "Daimeri here has a fleet of robots she's been just _dying_ to try out. We'll see how well he can hide when his precious island's been blown to ashes."

An ugly gleam appeared in Raker's eyes. "Sounds good. Any idea when you're planning to do it? I'd like to watch."

"That, my new friend, is our own business," Robotnik answered. Something about Raker put even him on edge; the jackal had wiped out the Oil Ocean Zone entirely – apparently the explosions and flames had been seen as far away as Casino Night Zone – and probably wouldn't balk at doing it again if he got what he wanted at the end of it. "But yes. Alright. I'll have Daimeri here give you a radio transmitter. When you've captured the hedgehog, call me."

A broad smile appeared on Raker's face. "A pleasure. But the bait's mine."

"Of course. Like you said, what possible use could I have for a brat like that? I'm not even sure what you want him for."

"A number of things." The smile didn't leave Raker's face, but it did harden until it was as cold and glittering as diamond. "Kid's deeply disturbed, been hanging around with Sonic so long he's forgotten what being part of a family means. I want to, ah, refresh his memory."

"If you're like this around your brother, I don't blame him for taking off," Daimeri said bluntly. Raker whirled.

"If I wanted to hear some form of antiquated morality, I'd ask Sonic! The hedgehog for my kid brother. Do we have a deal or not?"

Inwardly he wasn't sure which answer he wanted to hear. Finding Robotnik hadn't been easy – and getting an audience with him that didn't involve being blown to pieces or roboticised first had been even harder – and Raker had been questioning the wisdom of his actions ever since that damn robot had ushered him in here!

But damn it all to hell, _nobody_ made a fool of him like Sonic and that little turd Bait had done and got away with it!

Raker hadn't banked on Robotnik having Daimeri there though, hadn't even seen or heard of her before now. In fact he still hadn't really seen her; the ovoid room was kept in quasi-darkness and Daimeri was taking care to keep well out of sight. Even when Raker had been directly behind her, it had been too dark to see much. As a jackal, his night vision was pretty good, but this was nothing like ordinary night. What the hell was Robotnik playing at, having her? This was supposed to be a secret meeting! This wasn't anti-feminist thinking – for all his faults, Raker wasn't sexist – but he _was_ paranoid enough not to trust anyone unless he literally had a knife at their throat (and even then, only maybe). And all that aside, he'd never met anybody who made his skin crawl like this female.

"Well, I don't know." Somehow Raker knew, just _knew_ from the tone of her voice that Daimeri was smirking. Probably she was well aware of what was going through his mind as well. "Why'd you come to us, anyway?"

Sensing that he'd almost won, Raker smirked back. "Well...my mother told me to always go to the best."

"Really." Daimeri was playing with two knives now, juggling them one-handed. "Was that before or after she drowned herself?"

The smirk abruptly dropped off Raker's face. He'd temporarily forgotten just how much these people knew.

"Before, of course." His smirk reappeared as he added, "She wasn't a great talker after it happened. Can't think _why_."

"Your doing?"

"Mine?" Raker feigned shock. "No! How can you even suggest such a thing?" The smirk broadened. "I did, ah, vary my reading of her note to the bait though."

"But you didn't kill her? Or your father?"

"Are you kidding? I was getting meals cooked for me, no bills and my sheets washed on a regular basis. Why the hell should I want to put a stop to that?" Raker's eyes glittered. "Well, on a semi-regular basis at least; our father spent most of his time in Casino Night Zone and mother wasn't a big one for playing happy families."

"Also a drug addict, I think," Robotnik remarked, apparently to the ceiling. Raker raised his eyebrows.

"I'm impressed. Yeah." He snickered. "No wonder Bait turned out like he did. I did my best to give him some sense of pride, of family loyalty, but he walked out on me in favour of Sonic."

There was a long pause, then Daimeri suddenly reached over and lifted her glass of water, raising it in a toast.

"To new acquaintances. And old enemies," she added.

The other two clinked glasses with hers, although only Raker echoed the toast. Robotnik was silent, mind already ticking over trying to work out a contingency plan for capturing Sonic in case Raker failed, and, to his own private astonishment, feeling very, very glad that he wasn't Raker's brother.

**So there ya go...short but sweet, like all beginning chapters (at least for me ;)) I was gonna add the next chapter but got too tired...in a couple days though :P I know there's not much here but still, if you read, please review :D**


	2. Mushroom Hill Zone

**Kj: Thanks, I'll try ;)**

**Awdures: Heh, thanks. That's my plan in a nutshell; post the final chapter and the sequel :P**

**Pyro Hedgehog4Ever: Ah, but Daimeri has a platoon of robots to wipe out Angel Island, remember? Why should she go there herself:P You'll find out who tries to split Tails and Knux up in due time ;)**

**FriedBrickWall: Heh, okay ;) (_Knuckles: Like I would!_) And you'll find out about this one very soon :P**

**Riven K. Daniel: (beats off fangirls with giant marshmallow club) Okay, how's that:P **

**Moonpaw7: Thanks :D**

**SaffraEchidna: Hee hee (evil grin) Thanks; glad you liked it :D And a Happy New Year to you too :)**

**Toboe16: Well...if I'm gonna have more Bait (which I might or might not do, depending on reviewers' wishes ;)) I gotta have more Raker :P Besides, I love writing him; he's so deliciously evil (weg)**

_Guardian's Log no. 11485_

_Well, so I'm going home again. How many times have I written that in these logs? I never want to leave Angel Island again, no matter what kind of 'weird thing' Sonic's found or how battered Tails looks, I am staying put and if anything wants to kill me or wants rescuing, then it can damn well come to me! I'm sick of doing the legwork!_

_Sonic left the CDA and is currently heading for Seaside Hill Zone with Bait. I guess Sonic's right; the kid does need time to chill and relax. Bottom line though, I don't expect to see either of them back anytime soon, and let the record show that Bait is not welcome on Angel Island. Yes, I know he did help us find Tails, but I can't forgive the fact that he also made the kid disappear in the first place._

_In other news, Tails is with me. So long as he doesn't ask me to explain the facts of life again, we should get on just fine. I guess I did kinda miss him last time he left. _

_Not that I'd ever admit it to him, of course._

_--Knuckles the Echidna_

_Dear Diary_

_I think it's sinking in that I'm free again. Out of the mines, out of everything and going back to Angel Island. I still get really bad dreams, but at least I'm safe here. Nobody except Sonic knows Angel Island even exists._

_--Tails_

"What's wrong with you now?" Knuckles demanded. He was tired – Tails was either refusing point blank to sleep or, when his body finally mutinied and put him out, suffering from horrific nightmares which usually woke the echidna up – and in no mood to be pleasant.

Tails, who had stopped, rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. "Knux?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I get my toolbox? Please?" When the echidna stared at him, Tails ducked his head. "It's buried real near here. 'S just...I'd feel better if I had it."

"You don't still carry that old thing around with you, do you?"

"I did...right up until they—" Tails broke off. "Doesn't matter. Forget it."

Knuckles shrugged. "You want it, kid, go ahead and get it. I'm just surprised it's lasted as long as it has; the bag wasn't in the best condition when I passed it on to you and that was before you'd lugged it all over Mobius."

"Knux...c'n you dig it up if I show you where? Please? I'd do it but..." Tails held up his broken wrist. The echidna glanced at it and softened slightly.

"Yeah, okay. Where'd you bury it?" He started digging in the place Tails pointed to, then paused. "_Why'd_ you bury it, if it comes to that?" Reaching down, he pulled out a dark green bundle and handed it to Tails, who grabbed onto it like a lifeline, clutching it tightly to his chest.

The fox fixed Knuckles with a wretched look. "They wrecked it, Knux. Before I was dragged off to that place, they wrecked my toolbox an' I had to bury it to stop them doing it again."

The echidna whistled softly. That toolbox was Tails' pride and joy; apart from being exceptionally good quality in its own right, it was the last thing Sonic had given him before being taken prisoner by Robotnik.

_Poor kid. That must have destroyed him._

"Did you manage to save anything?" he asked quietly.

"Well, sorta." Tails rummaged in the canvas bag the tools were kept in, or what was left of it. It had been slashed beyond repair, all the pockets for the tools torn out from their seams. Most of the tools were still in reasonably good condition – Knuckles suspected that this was due more to their resilience than any kindness on the part of the perpetrators – but the hacksaw had been snapped and twisted beyond recognition and the handles of the tools had been hacked and broken wherever possible.

That wasn't the worst of it, though. There was a dark stain on the canvas, and even after all this time the faint but distinct smell of urine was enough to tell the echidna what had happened.

"Damn." Sickened, Knuckles turned away. After fighting Robotnik, he was no stranger to the concept of hostility, but he'd never encountered pure spite and malice at such a low level before, even from the doctor.

"I didn't wanna dump it at first, but after they did this I wanted to make sure they couldn't do it again. They kept smashing the stuff I made too." Sadly, Tails took out a mess of fragile glass and components, then looked up at Knuckles. "Can I take it with me? Please?"

"Yeah. Yeah, alright." Knuckles shook his head. "You should have come to me for help."

Tails glared at him. "I fight my own battles, Knucklehead!"

"I don't mean you should have asked me to deal with them. But face it, kid, you know nothing about fighting a real opponent that's not mechanical."

"I said I fight my own battles, with no help from anybody!"

The echidna snorted. "Don't be dumb. You think I'd have managed to protect the Master Emerald this long if I'd refused to let my parents train me?" He rubbed his jaw reminiscently. "Not that I ever would; my mother had one hell of a right hook on her. I learned that lesson the hard way and once was enough."

Tails' jaw dropped. "She _hit_ you?"

"Oh yeah. Sent me right into a pricklebush."

"Wow." Still clutching his toolbox, the fox wriggled in next to Knuckles' side. "Did it hurt?"

The echidna glanced down at him. "Well, it was hard enough to knock me head over heels into a bush covered in inch long spines, so yeah, it did hurt me a little," he said with heavy sarcasm. "Like I said, it only happened once."

Tails shook his head. "I told you, Knux, I fight my own battles."

Knuckles snorted. "Yeah? That worked out pretty good last time, didn't it?" When the fox paled and looked away, Knuckles continued in a slightly softer tone. "You don't wanna talk about it yet, that's fine. But tell me one thing, Tails, and then I'll leave you in peace. How the hell'd you wind up there?"

Tails looked away and didn't answer.

"Sonic told me about the fight you two had before I fixed him up," Knuckles added, in the hopes that this might give the kid a starting point.

"He did?" Tails looked up at the echidna nervously. "What else did he tell you? Did he tell you what...what I said?"

"He said you called him a _pretman_." Knuckles shook his head. "Where did you even learn that word? I know damn well _I_ never taught it to you!"

Tails shifted his weight. "Well...you kinda did. I heard you muttering it in your sleep one night. You were muttering something else about Robotnik too, so I guessed it wasn't a compliment."

Knuckles regarded him steadily. "If Sonic had been an echidna he would have called you out for an insult like that, Tails, and I doubt you'd have walked away."

"No way _Sonic_ would have done, either," Tails muttered, not quite under his breath. "Not looking like he did."

"Tails!"

"Well, he wouldn't."

The echidna stepped away. "If all you're going to do is whine, you can do it by yourself. Or you can grow up and come with me to Angel Island. I parked it just above here."

The fox's jaw dropped. "You can _park_ the island?" he said, unwittingly echoing Sonic's identical comment when Knuckles had revealed this little fact to him.

"Yeah. C'mon. I want to change your bandages." Tails hesitated and the echidna played his trump card. "Of course, if you don't want any lactoberries—"

"Lactoberries?" Tails bounded up eagerly, thoughts of first aid forgotten. "Are they in season again?"

"They're always in season up there, one way or another. I got some chocolate flavoured ones, if you're interested."

Tails snorted. "There's no such thing as chocolate flavoured lactoberries, Knux, and you _know _it."

"There is if you manage to breed the bush to the right tree." Knuckles considered. "The strawberry ones weren't so successful though."

"Hmm." Tails considered. "You might have more luck with a pella tree."

"True, but I'm not sure how a pella-flavoured milkshake would taste, and frankly I can't be bothered to experiment."

Tails frowned slightly. "Is this ethical?"

"Well, crossbreeding between separate species was banned to try and prevent mental problems, but let's face it; shrubs and trees are never going to be known as great intellectuals." Knuckles pulled out the purple Chaos Emerald and Tails stared at it.

"I thought you only brought the red one."

"You did?" Knuckles said with an uncharacteristic gleam in his eyes. "Funny, that. So did Sonic."

"What's it do?"

"It's the teleportation one. I figured we might need to get out in a hurry and besides, how else are we supposed to get up to Angel Island? C'mon." Knuckles caught hold of Tails' good arm and focused, channeling the Emerald's power. Dots appeared in front of his eyes, like the kind you got when you fainted, only these cleared after a few minutes to reveal the Mushroom Hill Zone. Looking around, Tails relaxed fully for the first time in months.

"We're going, right Knux?"

"Yeah. Yeah, the island's moving."

"Cool." Tails looked around. "So where're the lactoberries? You did say chocolate flavoured, right?"

The echidna rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I did. And they're scattered around this Zone; I think there was a bush behind those mushrooms."

"Al_right_!" Seemingly forgetting his injuries, Tails shoved the toolbox into Knuckles' chest and raced off. The echidna shook his head...it was easy to see that Tails' ordeal in the tunnels hadn't affected his mind.

_At least, not much_, he amended, remembering the screaming nightmares the fox had been getting every night, nightmares that were so bad Tails usually refused point blank to go to sleep and did everything he could to avoid it, from sidetracking Knuckles to holding his own eyelids open with his fingers. The echidna was half hoping that being safe on Angel Island would help the kid get some proper rest.

_In the meantime, I better stop him before he makes himself sick,_ Knuckles thought grimly; Tails had found the lactoberry bush but his injuries were making it a little hard for him to reach the white oval shapes.

Lactoberries had a soft outer shell that tasted a little like bread, and a liquid inside that was bubbly, frothy and tasted almost exactly like milk. They crossbred with other plants with perfect willingness, if not positive enthusiasm, and the end result was a liquid flavoured like a fruit or leaf. Too many were poisonous (although not toxic enough to do more than give you acute indigestion) but the odd two or three didn't hurt. They only grew on Angel Island, and on his first visit, Tails had promptly developed an addiction bordering on obsession for them.

Reaching out, Knuckles pulled a section of the bush towards Tails, then tugged a ripe berry off the stem.

"Here." He handed it to Tails, who bit into it, spilling the milk inside everywhere. "Oh, you're going to smell _great _when that dries," the echidna added, smirking slightly. Tails made a muffled sound around his mouthful, then finished the berry and followed it with another before attempting to simultaneously lick and suck the spilt milk out of his fur.

"You're that hungry?" Knuckles said, somewhat taken aback by the fox's voracity.

A vigorous nod and muffled reply which sounded roughly like, "Yfmstrvn," was the only answer as Tails gulped down the milk and started on the shell.

"Tails?" Knuckles reached out for the berry. "Tails, trust me, you don't wanna eat too many of those; they tend to—" He broke off as his glove brushed against the fox's hand and Tails half turned, teeth bared in a snarl. Knuckles held up both hands in surrender and backed off; he had no wish to court death a second time if Tails was going feral. "Alright, kid. Find out for yourself."

It took three more lactoberries before Tails' slurping slowed, and another two before he pronounced himself full. Staring at him, Knuckles shook his head.

"Jeez, kid, anyone would think you hadn't eaten since your last meal in there."

Suddenly sleepy, Tails yawned widely. "Knux, c'n I go to sleep?"

The echidna blinked. "What're you asking me for? You want to sleep, you sleep. There're more comfortable places though. C'mon." He led the fox through the Zone and towards his small hut. Inside, he pointed at the sofa. "Go on, lie down on that and get some rest."

Almost sleepwalking now, Tails padded over and curled up on Knuckles' sofa, closing his eyes. Within seconds he was asleep and snoring gently.

Knuckles glanced down at him, then went to fetch a thick blanket from the cupboard; even on Angel Island the winters were too cold for comfort.

Emerging from his hut – he didn't want to be too far away in case Tails had another nightmare – Knuckles climbed up a nearby cliff and paused at the top to stare down over his island.

_Damn, it's good to be home_.

Breaking into a run, he launched himself off the edge and felt the air catch and suspend him. Pure ecstasy filled the echidna; how long had it been since he'd simply glided for the pleasure of it, rather than as a means of getting from A to B?

Circling over his hut, his gaze fell upon the Marble Garden Zone and he smiled slightly. Yeah. That would be good, to visit there; he hadn't been in that Zone for a while.

Changing course, he glided in a straight line, spilling air as he went so that he landed not too far from the entrance; it wouldn't do to vanish for longer than a couple of hours, not with Tails back in the hut.

That was the theory, at least. In fact it was five and a half hours before Knuckles returned, feeling more than a little guilty. In all fairness, he hadn't intended to stay away; he'd come across a fallen log in the river that had been accumulating other debris behind it and stopped to clear the mess. He'd almost done it as well; it needed an hour or so's more work doing to it, but it had gotten too dark to see properly, and there was Tails...oh boy. The kid had seriously overdosed on lactoberries, and Knuckles really wasn't looking forward to the night ahead.

Speaking of which...he glanced at the sky, doing a few rapid calculations.

_Let's see, he ate the berries six hours ago...yes, that should be it..._ He sighed. _Five, four, three, two, one—_

From inside the hut, Tails yelped suddenly, a yelp that was more surprise than pain. That would change soon enough, Knuckles knew. With a sigh, he trudged inside and over to the fox.

"Hey kid."

"Knux?" Tails tried to focus on him in the gloom. "Knux, my gut hurts." Another stabbing pain shot through him and he winced.

"Yeah. Too many lactoberries screws up your insides." Knuckles shrugged. "Nothing you can do except wait for them to leave your system."

Tails groaned, curling up and holding his stomach. "Bet you never had this problem."

"Hell no." There was the barest hint of a gleam in the echidna's eyes as he added, "And if you ever call up my mother in a séance and she tells you I ate six lactoberries and spent the entire night wailing loud enough for my father to hear me up at the Master Emerald, she's exaggerating."

Tails tried to imagine a wailing Knuckles and found he couldn't. His imagination rebelled.

"How old were you?"

"Not very. It's one of my earliest memories; I'd say about three, maybe a little younger."

"You _wailed_?" Tails echoed.

"I said that was an exaggeration, okay?" Knuckles said testily.

In fact, it was something of an understatement.Echidna puggles were known for being extremely loud and vocal about pretty much everything, and little Knuckles had been louder and more vocal than most. The concept of suffering in silence didn't hold much water with any echidna under the age of about five; an upset puggle sounded a lot like a foghorn with hiccups, only louder and more penetrating. Echidna puggles also had a very simple view of such things; whenever something hurt or upset them they just opened their mouths as wide as they could and bawled until the problem had been dealt with by a long-suffering adult.

Another cramp shot through Tails' stomach and he yelped, ears flat against his skull, body quivering slightly.

"I am _never_ eating another one of those things!" he managed to get out in between cramps. Knuckles snorted.

"Yeah, I know the feeling. I was never as keen on them after that. A couple don't hurt, but you ate seven on the trot."

"You could've warned me!"

"I would have if you'd given me enough time between berries," Knuckles retorted. "But oh no, you just had to keep stuffing more into that mouth of yours."

"I was _hungry_, Knuckles!" Tails' face contorted in another spasm and Knuckles saw a thin dribble of red where the fox had bitten his lip. "They didn't feed us much in...back there. Least, not stuff you'd want to eat."

"I figured as much when I saw how fast those berries went down. Like I said, I tried to warn you, but you'd already gulped down four...not to mention the little fact that you warned me off your food in no uncertain terms."

"You could've still told me!"

"If I'd have persisted, kid, I'd bet everything I own, including the Master Emerald, that you'd have lunged for my throat."

"You could've ducked," Tails muttered.

"Sorry kid, but I like my throat. I didn't want to get it bitten through."

Tails shuddered as another cramp racked his body.

"Yeah, but I'd never really _bite_ you, Knux. You know that, right?"

"All I know, kid, is that you tried to chew me up back in that place. I didn't want an encore and when you showed me your teeth, I thought I was about to get one." Knuckles considered. "It was my own fault, I guess; I should've known better than to make any kind of contact with you if you're gonna be like that."

"'S not that." Tails' body jerked, his back arching off the bed. "'S...you got food and you hung onto it. I was...I'm sorry, just don't remind me, okay? 'Cause that...only makes me feel worse."

Knuckles snickered. "Tails, I doubt that even Robotnik could do or say anything to make you feel worse than you do right now."

"Am I gonna die?"

"Not from lactoberry poisoning, no. If you'd eaten twenty or thirty you might do, but I doubt even your appetite's large enough to handle that many."

Tails thrashed around suddenly, in the grip of another spasm, then went limp and stared at the echidna, breathing rapidly.

"I'm gonna be sick, aren't I?" Inwardly Tails hoped not; he hated to puke worse than anything, but that was usually how things worked, wasn't it? You ate something bad, you threw it up.

"No, you're not going to be sick," Knuckles said, and that might have reassured the fox had he not then added, "It tends to come out the other end."

Tails blanched, ears flat. "Gross!"

"But true. Still painful?"

A nod. "Thirsty..."

Knuckles rolled his eyes. "Alright, wait there. I'll go get you some water." He didn't know if it would help at all, but his mother had given him water towards the end of the night. Knuckles had gulped it all down, and a few seconds later hadn't fallen asleep so much as passed out. Even at that young age, he'd had a nagging suspicion that there had been something else in that drink besides mere water.

Actually, now that he thought about it...no. No, resist temptation. But on his way back with the water, Knuckles noticed the seida plant he kept on one windowsill was in bloom. And...well, everyone knew that seida seeds were a powerful soporific, right? Still, he'd never grown them indoors before...he had to make sure the seeds were just as good, right? Right?

Tails yelped loudly from behind, causing the echidna jump and make up his mind. Reaching out, he pulled off two of the pale green oval seeds, crushed them and dropped them into the water. They foamed briefly for a couple of minutes, then dissolved.

Telling himself there was nothing else he could do – and there wasn't; there was no cure for a lactoberry overdose except waiting – Knuckles handed the water to Tails.

"Here. Drink, it'll make you feel better." _Or at least knock you out until the worst of it's over,_ he added in the privacy of his own mind.

Tails grabbed the glass, spilling some of it over the sofa, then gulped it down. A few seconds later, his eyes rolled up into his head and he collapsed.

"Thank the Emeralds for that," Knuckles muttered. Maybe it was somewhat underhanded, but it had worked a treat. And besides, what else could he have done?

Tails gave a contented little sigh and burrowed deeper into the blankets. Next to him, Knuckles sat down and dropped his head into his hands.

_Why is it that whenever I agree to one of Sonic's crackpot schemes, I wind up saddled with this kid?_

**Okay, that's it ;) Out of interest though, do you guys want all Knuckles and Tails or do you want some Sonic and Bait thrown in as well? (Okay, so they're probably going to show up anyway...the only question is how much:P) If you read, please review :D**


	3. Family Reunion

**Kj: Thanks, I'll try :)**

**Trash: Heh, thanks :D**

**Matri90: Glad you liked it :) And as requested, there shall be some Sonic'n'Bait :P**

**Pyro Hedgehog4Ever: You want it? You got it :D**

**Awdures: (happy smile) Thanks. I love comments like that; they make it all worthwhile :D Daimeri...ooh, you'll find out about her in good time (weg)**

**Matt Lans: Okay, Sonic and Bait it shall be. Learning Bait's original name...I don't know. At the minute I've no idea what it is...to be honest, I can't imagine him being called anything else now :S And thanks; I love Raker too (in a hating-his-guts kind of way ;))**

**The Kuzbucket: (_Knuckles: Oh thankyou. That makes me feel SO much better._) Thanks :D I'm glad you're enjoying it. And thanks for the warning; to be honest, I do know that reviewer responses aren't allowed in chapters but a) everyone else seems to and b) if people take time out to leave a message just saying they liked the story (or not as the case may be) I believe in thanking them publicly...I'm just weird that way :P I think it's more entire chapters devoted to replies that FF hate as opposed to slotting them in here...I do have my stuff backed up though, just in case (working on building a Sonic site at some point to put it up there :P)**

**Toboe16: Heh, maybe he should :P Anyway, you want Sonic and Bait, you got it ;)**

**FriedBrickWall: (_Knuckles: Hmph. At least someone understands why I did it._) Yeah, Knux, sure. Lactoberries...depends on what they're crossed with, but usually they're about the same size as a human hand held out with the fingers and thumb pressed together, if that makes sense :P Every other chapter...I'll try, but at the moment I'm not sure I have enough material for Sonic and Bait. Still, there's time ;) EDIT: Okay, yes I do ;) I moved a chunk of the storyline up and Sonic and Bait shall be in :P**

**SaffraEchidna: (_Tails: Glad someone else thinks so!)_ Thanks :D And by popular demand, Sonic and Bait shall feature in this fic :P**

_Guardian's Log no. 11486_

_Tails is out and about somewhere. I don't know where he slept for the second half of last night, but it wasn't in my hut...as the ornament on the floor can bear witness. Why'd that kid have to go out the damn window, anyway?_

_Tails also overdosed on lactoberries. Badly. Poor kid was suffering chronic stomach cramps and...well, given that the diarrhea's likely to kick in any time, if it hasn't already, to be honest I'm in no hurry to find him. Yet when I tried to warn him of the likely consequences of an overdose, he almost bit me, thinking I was trying to steal his food. Ha. Like I haven't got enough of my own...and I've not been so fond of lactoberries ever since my own overindulgence as a puggle._

_--Knuckles the Echidna_

_Dear Diary_

_cant write much. stomach too queasy. uh oh gotta run._

_Hate lactoberries._

_--Tails_

Knuckles lay full length in front of the Master Emerald, eyes closed, smiling slightly at something inside his eyelids. This was what life was all about; peace, quiet, solitude and dreaming.

There was a scrambling sound from off to his left and the echidna grimaced inwardly and counted to ten. All good things had their down side.

Tails clambered up next to Knuckles and sat down on the steps of the shrine, kicking his legs morosely. After catching the fox trailing after him for what seemed like the hundredth time, Knuckles had finally relented and allowed Tails to come with him to the Master Emerald. Even after what had happened down in the mines Knuckles knew the kid was determined not to become clingy and dependent, but at the same time Tails didn't like letting Knuckles out of his sight either.

"How're you feeling?" the echidna asked.

"Okay. My gut still hurts but I think I'm not gonna...I think I've finished, uh..."

"Evacuating?"

"Uh huh." Tails glanced up at the lactoberries growing close by the Master Emerald, then looked away with a shudder. "Knux...is it okay if I go 'sploring?"

"You do what you want, kid. Just be careful; the last thing I want is to find your remains on Hydrocity wall."

Tails shivered. He vividly remembered the one and only time he'd been down into Hydrocity; he still had nightmares about that wall, how it had ground towards him...most of all about the dark, rust coloured stains he'd seen on the opposite walls.

"No way. I'm not going down there again _ever_."

Knuckles shrugged. "You can go down if you want. Just don't get squashed; I didn't get you out of those tunnels to lose you to the defences on my own damn island."

Tails shook his head. "Uh uh. I'll go to Marble Garden or something; that's a safe Zone, right Knux?"

"Safer than Hydrocity, that's for sure." The echidna lay back down, chin pillowed on his arms, vaguely hearing Tails pad away.

Some six hours had passed before Knuckles finally went to look for the fox, and it took him another four before he actually found him; Tails was sitting at the top of a snow covered hill in the Ice Cap Zone, staring up at the sky and shivering.

"So this is where you've been hiding!" Knuckles said, relief making him sharp. "Dammit, are you on some kind of death wish? It's freezing out here, kid. _Below_ freezing."

"I like it," Tails said, although he was shivering so badly he could hardly get the words out.

"Oh, you do, do you? You could at least stay in one of the caves."

Tails shook his head. "No. Not after...that place. I can't."

"You can't, huh?"

Another shake of the head. "No. And besides, I..." Tails broke off and looked away, embarrassed.

"You what?" Knuckles said idly.

Tails scuffed the ground, tracing patterns in the snow with his finger. "I like seeing the sky. After that place, I don't wanna be trapped again."

Knuckles could well believe it. Tails had stayed in the echidna's hut for the rest of that first day after waking up, but when it had started to get dark he'd panicked and bolted out of the window. Knuckles had been a little put out by this – if the kid wanted to leave, then fine, but there had been no need for him to go out the window and knock the ornament there over, not when there was a perfectly good door just sitting in the wall doing nothing – but hadn't said anything.

Knuckles reached out and rested a hand on Tails' shoulder.

"Tails?" he said softly. "Tails, come back with me."

The fox's shivering increased momentarily, then he slumped dejectedly and didn't offer any resistance when Knuckles lifted him into his arms. The echidna winced as the fox's cold body touched his own, then told himself not to be so damn weak. Besides, Tails would most likely warm up well enough when he got back.

The fox mumbled something. Trying to hear, Knuckles leaned in.

"Say what?"

"Walin." Tails' voice was almost inaudible; he was more asleep than awake. "Walin yapai."

The shock of this was so great that Knuckles actually staggered. The kid's accent was atrocious, thick enough to slice with a knife, but he understood.

"The Chaos Caves! _That's_ what they're digging for in those tunnels! That's what they want!" Knuckles felt his blood congeal as he remembered Tails' cryptic message back in Scrap Brain Zone: _Knuckles, the caves! We can't let them get to the caves!_ He'd dismissed it at the time, chalked it up to the kid having a nightmare – and hell, who had a better right than Tails? – but now it made a terrible kind of sense. All that raw chaos matter, just waiting to be picked up...it chilled him just thinking about it.

"Caves, Knux," Tails mumbled. "Gotta stop 'em...can't let 'em get..."

"We won't. We'll stop them, but only _after_ you're rested and fully healed. You're not going back like this."

Tails forced open bleary eyes and fixed them suspiciously on the echidna. "You're sending me _back_? To that place?"

"No! But we're going back one day, to get all the other slaves out." Knuckles relented. "Or at least, you can tell me how to find my way and _I'll_ get them out. But we can't leave those slaves."

A small smile appeared on Tails' face. "'Specially not the echidna shaped variety, huh?"

"Quiet," Knuckles ordered, a little more sharply than he'd intended. "Save your strength for healing." He hoped his voice didn't betray the whirling thunderstorm of emotions he felt whenever Tails mentioned that little fact, that there was another echidna down in the tunnels and not only that, an echidna about Tails' age, if not younger. Where was his parents? How had he got there? Was there another echidna settlement somewhere? He supposed it was possible – after all, he didn't know much about the Mobian surface – but not all that probable. No Mobian knew what he was, not even Sonic at first, and if there was a Zone which that hedgehog hadn't blazed through at some point, Knuckles didn't know what it was.

Looking down, he saw Tails was sound asleep. Poor kid, to get free and then celebrate that freedom with a chronic attack of diarrhea. Knuckles snorted silently. Well, he'd tried to warn Tails and look what thanks he'd got. Serve the kid right if he couldn't take a friendly warning.

Knuckles sighed. He didn't really mean that; worry over Tails and how the hell he was supposed to fix him up with no medical centre on Angel Island was making him snippier than usual.

By the time Knuckles arrived back at his hut, it was almost midnight and he was drained. Placing Tails on the sofa and dragging blankets over him, he crawled into his own bed and was asleep almost before he was under the covers.

The rest of the night passed in relative peace and quiet. That is, Knuckles slept peacefully and Tails didn't, at least, not until he woke up from a horrific nightmare for the third time in a row and snuck into Knuckles' bed, snuggling up to the warmth and security of the echidna's bulk.

Knuckles let him. He didn't much fancy being mauled and headbutted to within an inch of his sanity a second time, which was the usual outcome if Tails was unable to get into just the right position.

He sighed inwardly. He'd have to do something about the kid, and soon. Not that he minded sharing his hut, but it really wasn't large enough for two of them.

Next to him, Tails was feeling a growing sense of uneasiness that was only slightly checked by Knuckles' presence. He found he hated being indoors; if he couldn't see the sky, it was too much like the tunnels. Tails wished he hadn't given in, wished he'd stayed in Ice Cap Zone, but the warmth of the echidna's hand had been too pleasant to resist.

When he woke up again, it was bright sunshine outside and Tails scrambled to his feet, waking Knuckles at the same time.

"Knux! Knux, can I go outside?"

"Wha'th'ell y'askin' me for?" the echidna mumbled drowsily. "Y'don't need my perrission, kid. Y'wanna go, go." Memories of yesterday's events tapped him on the shoulder at this point and he woke up enough to add, "But not through the—"

There was a clatter as the small sculpture on Knuckles' sill fell to the floor.

"—window," the echidna finished, somewhat redundantly. With a sigh he got to his feet. It was probably time to get up anyway. Yeah. Time for breakfast, then another day spent lazing and dreaming in front of the Master Emerald. Paradise.

A couple of miles away, Tails sat down by a stream and dangled a stick in the water. Boy, was he gonna have bad dreams _every_ night? For the rest of his life? That hardly seemed fair!

Almost immediately, he seemed to hear Sonic's voice again, saying the same words the hedgehog had spoken when Tails had been a four year old cub.

"_The world isn't fair, Tails. You'll learn that one day._"

"'Sright it's not fair," Tails mumbled, then shot to his feet and yelled at the forest, "It's not fair that you blew me off either an' left me to wander around on my own! It's _your_ fault I wound up in that place, Sonic, all your fault!"

A twig snapped behind him and he jerked, spinning around. "Who's that? Knux?"

No answer. Tails shifted his weight nervously and tried again. "C'mon Knux, this isn't funny. If you're there, c'mon out. Please."

For a moment, there was utter silence. Even the birds seemed to have stopped.

Then there was the unmistakable sound of someone moving very fast towards him, and Tails spun and bolted in Knuckles' direction; if it was someone from the tunnels coming for him, he wanted the echidna's support.

"Where's the fire?" Knuckles said idly. He was in a rare good mood, having found enough grapes to last him all the way through breakfast.

"Knux, someone's coming! Someone's coming, you gotta do something!"

The echidna straightened. "Here? Towards the Master Emerald?"

It was comments like that, Tails thought resignedly, which let you know exactly where you stood in life.

"Yes, towards the Master Emerald! And towards _me_," the fox couldn't resist adding.

"Kid, if someone steals you, it doesn't have the potential to bring about the end of the world, literally." Knuckles glanced at Tails and smirked slightly, letting him know he wasn't too serious. "Except their own personal one, of course."

There was a crashing sound from the undergrowth and a figure emerged...or perhaps _emerged_ was too kind a word; she stumbled, tripped, attempted to right herself and failed, then fell to her side with a crash, burned and streaked with blood and sweat.

Tails looked at Knuckles. "She doesn't seem dangerous, does she, Knux?"

Knuckles didn't answer. He was too busy staring. Puzzled, Tails followed his gaze and stared, seeing the person for the first time.

"She's...is that an _echidna_?"

"Tails...this..."

Tails shifted the stunned stare to Knuckles. He'd never seen the echidna like this before.

"Knux, is it 'cause it's another echidna? Is that why you're so stammery and stuff?"

"That's not just any echidna, kid." Knuckles licked his lips, feeling unaccountably afraid for no reason he could fathom. Reaching down, he caught hold of the battered female and eased her to her feet, then turned to the fox. "Tails, I'd like you to meet Lara-Le...my mother."

**Okay, so there you have it :P Sonic and Bait shall turn up (sooner or later) and for the meantime...well, I know it's short but it seemed as good a place as any to leave it :P Hope you enjoyed it and if you read, please review:D**


	4. Breakfast and a Dinner Date

**Kj: Heh, maybe it is and maybe it isn't ;) You'll have to keep reading to find out :P**

**Matri90: Yep, it sure looks that way :P And thanks; glad you're enjoying it :D**

**Awdures: (weg) Thanks; glad I managed to surprise you. And you'll find out about Lara-Le in good time ;)**

**Moonpaw7: You could well be right :D (_Knuckles: ..._) (_Tails: Ooh boy...he's gone. That's the first time he's not reacted in some way to huggles_)**

**SaffraEchidna: Thanks ;) And I'm glad you liked Tails' little snide comment as well :D**

**FriedBrickWall: Heh, I consider everyone's request (particularly constant reviewers :D) it kinda helps me write and see things better :P As for why Tails went out the window instead of the door...I don't know, to be honest. Maybe we'll find out later ;) (_Tails: Yeah, I do kinda miss travelling, but you're forgetting one little thing; I happen to have a broken wrist and a broken tail and probably a few cracked ribs! Not a good time to go exploring...especially after what happened last time_) Don't mind him; I think he's in shock :P There actually was a slightly alternate ending to _Caves, _along with a paragraph where Knuckles pointed out to Sonic that Tails would need rest to heal. Maybe I shouldn't have cut it ;) As for the rest of it, read on ;)**

**Toboe16: Yep. Mother :P**

**Matt Lans: Someone's been indulging in the comics, huh? (And no, I'm not talking about me :P) You'll find out about Knux's father later in this fic ;)**

**PyroHedgehog4Ever: (laughs) Oh boy, you know me too well :D**

**Asher Tye: Thanks :) As for the rest…you'll find out about Lara-Le and probably Tails, if he ever manages to bring himself to talk about it. (_Knuckles: I am NOT sweet!_) Don't mind him; he's upset because of having to perch on the back shelf on the car journey home (_Knuckles: Seatbelts, human. I cannot stress it enough. Seat. Belts._) **

_My Memoirs by Me_

_Well, so now I've been lumbered with Bait. Heh. Actually, that's not true and not at all fair (and given how the kid reacted last time he thought he was just 'some booby prize' as he put it, it's not all that smart either). Bait, if you're reading this, first of all you shouldn't be and secondly, I was only kidding._

_We're still with the CDA, but hopefully not for much longer. I want to move on soon. I don't know where, but I'm getting itchy feet. The trouble is that Bait's more than happy to stay here in Scrap Brain Zone. If the kid feels safe and secure here, I don't wanna take that away from him – poor guy's had little enough security in his life, all ten years of it – but I can't stay in one place indefinitely._

_Maybe once he's convinced I'm not gonna abandon him...oh boy, please don't let this be another Tails. When I first met him that little fox was so determined that I wouldn't walk out on him that he tied himself to my plane._

_--Sonic the Hedgehog_

_Bait's Jurnal_

_Sonics getting impayshunt. Ill agree to go with him today. Yeah. Today._

_But wat if he leeves? Maybe Raker was rite. Tails helped Sonic, fixed his playne and built all that stuff for him. How am I suposed to compeet with that? Id rather he leeve me here in a city where I can get wurk than in the middel of a forest or jungel._

_--Bait the Jakkel_

Several Zones away, the sun's rays sliced over the horizon, through a window and straight into the eyes of a young jackal, who mumbled something under his breath and turned to stuff his head into the crook of his arm.

"You awake?" Sonic said cheerfully.

"Nuh uh," Bait mumbled. "Turn th' light out."

"It's the _sun_, Bait, and it's not due to go out until the next eclipse in about sixty years," Sonic informed him. "C'mon, or I'll eat all the food myself."

Bait's ears pricked forward at the mention of food and he stuck his head up cautiously, wincing as the light pierced his eyes.

"Yeah? What we got for breakfast?"

"Pancakes and pella juice."

Bait emerged further. "Pella juice?"

"Yeah, I went out for an early morning run and spun through a grove." Sonic reached behind to rub his quills tenderly; ripe pella fruits were rock hard. "Not intentionally, but hey, at least we got something to drink out of it. Here." He handed half a pella to Bait, who drank greedily. Pella juice wasn't exactly uncommon on Mobius, being only slightly rarer than water, but it was one of the jackal's favourite beverages.

"Dint you mention food?" Bait said hopefully. Sonic grinned.

"Yeah, I did, but I'm not gonna bring it in to you. You want it, you come through for it."

Bait winced. "I gotta _move_?"

"Well, unless you want me to eat all the pancakes myself, yeah."

"Nuh _uh_!" Scrambling to his feet, Bait followed Sonic into the kitchen. He'd spent a chunk of the previous night swimming in the river that flowed through Scrap Brain, riding the currents and seeing where they would take him, and it was unfortunate that one particular current had taken him down a side stream and straight into a swampy area...at least, unfortunate for anyone who was downwind of the jackal.

Sitting down, Bait piled four pancakes onto his plate. It had taken a good week or so, but the jackal no longer wolfed everything down in as few bites as possible as though he believed someone was going to take the food away from him. Slicing one pancake in half, he doubled it over, stuffed it into his mouth and said indistinctly, "Sonic, c'n you pass me the cratt syrup?"

"What's the magic word, Bait?"

"_Now_," Espio interjected, coming in and throwing a glare at Sonic. The chameleon had been in a foul mood ever since his brother had visited and he'd had a young iguana dumped on his hands, not necessarily in that order. Both of these incidents could be traced back to Knuckles, but since the echidna wasn't there, Espio settled for making Sonic's life difficult instead.

"Jeez, Espie, would you let it _go_ already?" Sonic said. "You know you don't mind having that...what's his name again?"

Espio shrugged. "I don't know. I haven't asked."

Sonic stared at him. "The kid's been squatting with you for almost a fortnight and you haven't even bothered to ask him his name yet?"

The chameleon whirled and Sonic tensed automatically, ready to duck away from flying shuriken. Espio's temper was on a hair trigger these days.

"Yes, he's been squatting with me! And whose fault's that?" He shook his head. "I'll give him food and shelter, yeah, but if he wants someone to play big brother to him he's in for one hell of a disappointment. Mighty's the one for that, not me."

"So what you're sayin', mister," Bait put in (much to Sonic's surprise; the jackal hardly ever spoke to the Chaotix) "is that you're jus' gonna let him live like a slave on'y with no whips an' no work, right? Guess that fits, but it ain't the lizard's fault you're who you are."

There was a long, deadly pause, during which Sonic leapt down from the table and moved to stand between Bait and Espio, who was staring hard at the jackal.

"You have three seconds to explain that, little cub."

"Espio, leave him!" Sonic said sharply. "He didn't mean to piss you off."

Espio opened his mouth.

"Uh...is now a good time?" someone said from the doorway.

"No!" Espio all but snarled.

"Right. Right." The speaker backed away. "It's just that...I have some more of that money I owe you."

It was almost comical how fast Espio's demeanour changed at the mention of _money_, Sonic thought with a grin; the chameleon's scowling glare smoothed itself out to an expression of polite attention and he swivelled around in one liquid move.

"Of course. Come on in and let's talk."

"Right. Hi Sonic."

The grin dropped off Sonic's face. "A-Amy?"

"Yeah. How's it going?"

Sonic swallowed; last time he and Amy had met in the CDA office, the pink hedgehog had been under the influence of a mind-altering substance in her makeup and the experience had been very embarrassing for all concerned.

"Great, I guess. Uh. You still got that family staying with you?"

"Yeah." When Raker had obliterated the Oil Ocean Zone, a few of the families lucky enough to escape the inferno had made it to Scrap Brain Zone, and one of those families – a father and four kids – had wound up staying in Amy's apartment.

"You mentioned money," Espio cut in. "You still owe us fifty Mobiums."

"Huh? Oh yeah. Here ya go." Amy held out a five Mobium note. The chameleon glanced at it.

"Alright. Where's the rest?"

"I need more time, Espio. This is all I can spare for now. I got five people to feed on a cashier's salary, and that's not easy!"

"It's also not the CDA's problem." Espio swung away abruptly and lifted a sheet of paper from a stack. "To recap: you promised us two hundred and fifty Mobiums if we found Sonic. You then tried to welsh on that deal, well, alright, you'd been driven insane at the time and so we decided not to pursue that...in fact, we even knocked half a Mobium off. Seventy seven and a half Mobiums were paid that day and you paid a lump sum of a hundred Mobiums the next morning." Espio tossed the paper down in a casual manner, as if the money was of no real interest to him. "But you still owe us seventy two Mobiums, and frankly, we're running out of patience. We've agreed to extend the deadline twice already and we are _not_ going to extend it a third time."

Amy folded her arms. "You _also_ agreed to waive some of that money in exchange for me bee-sitting Charmy when you and the others went out to the movies that time!"

A slight smile quirked Espio's mouth. "True. Let's see...you bee-sat Friday for four hours, and you did take him for three days when we had that case to work on. I seem to remember your bee-sitting rate is two and a half Mobiums per hour and ten Mobiums for the day, is that right?"

Amy nodded.

"So...four hours at two and a half gets ten Mobiums knocked off...three days gets another thirty..." Espio shook his head. "You still owe us thirty two Mobiums, and since we're not planning on going out again anytime soon, there's no way you can work out an alternative payment either."

"Twenty seven Mobiums now," Amy retorted, pushing the five Mobium note into the chameleon's hands. Espio remained unmoved.

"Fine. Twenty seven then. You got until the end of the week, and if you screw us over once more we're going to start charging you interest. I intended to do that right from the word go, but I was overruled."

Amy shot him a look. "And just where am I supposed to get twenty seven Mobiums from when I barely have enough to put food on the table for everyone?"

"I'll pay it," Sonic interrupted.

Amy looked taken aback. "Sonic...I couldn't let you...you'd do that? For me?"

"Yeah," Sonic said, a little shortly. The last thing he wanted was for Amy to start hearing wedding bells again.

"I'll pay you back, honest—"

"Don't worry about it, Amy."

Amy set her jaw obstinately. "I'm not a charity case, Sonic!"

Sonic and Bait exchanged an amused look – the jackal had said almost those exact same words a week or so ago – and then Sonic shrugged and said, "Fine. You can pay me back if you want, when you can afford it. Here, Espio." He handed three ten Mobium notes to the chameleon, who shrugged.

"Fine. I'll mark it off as paid." He glanced at Amy. "You want some breakfast?"

Amy shook her head. "No thanks. I gotta get to work else my boss'll kill me." Hesitating in the doorway, she added, "Hey Sonic, maybe we could go see a movie sometime...?" Amy let the sentence trail off hopefully and Sonic hesitated.

"Yeah...maybe...if I'm still around." Next to him, Bait snickered quietly and Sonic kicked him lightly on the ankle.

"Great! It's a date! You can pick me up at seven."

"I don't know where you live."

"Oops. I forgot that." Amy considered for all of half a second before saying, "Okay, I'll pick you up."

Sonic sighed inwardly. It had been worth a try. Aloud he said, "Okay. But not too late; I can't leave Bait here on his own."

"I won't be alone, Sonic; I got the Chaotix."

There were times, Sonic thought grimly, when Bait was more trouble than he was worth!

"Alright. But I still don't wanna be too late."

Amy pulled out her hammer and swung it idly, in much the same manner as someone might drum their fingers against their lips thoughtfully.

"Ten o'clock?"

Three hours. Sonic supposed he could survive three hours with her, although if the press got hold of this, they'd have a field day with it.

"Alright. Fine."

"Great! I'll see you then." Amy turned and sauntered out, still swinging the hammer to and fro.

"Sonic?" Bait said in a low voice.

"Yeah?"

"That giant mallet she carries...where's she keep it when she ain't usin' it?"

"Haven't figured that out yet. I've never dared ask either; Amy's deadly with that hammer."

Bait snorted. "Yeah, an' you're the fastest thing on two legs. Like you're scareda _her_!"

"I'm not scared of Knuckles either, but I still have a healthy respect for him and his strength."

Bait frowned; he'd never heard that expression before. "A _healthy_ respect?"

Sonic quirked an eye ridge at him. "Yeah. I provide the respect and in return I get to stay healthy."

The jackal hesitated – he wasn't sure whether or not Sonic was joking – then blurted out, "Does that mean we're gonna stay here tonight?"

"Yeah, we're staying here for tonight." Sonic wrinkled his nose slightly. "And _while_ we're here we can see if the CDA have a spare tub that we can dunk you in while I'm out."

Bait looked edgy. "You want me to have a...a _you-know-what_?"

Sonic rolled his eyes. "A _bath_, Bait, yes, I do. Because in case it escaped your notice, there is a distinct odour of pond scum emanating from your direction. In fact, that's being too kind; you reek of it and there's a bit of dried algae behind your left ear. If you want to splash around in bogs and swamps, fine, but you'll need a bath to get rid of the smell. I know you didn't get one yesterday because you got back so late, but you're having one today!"

The jackal squirmed. "I ain't good with baths, mister."

"Yeah, I've noticed," Sonic said very dryly. "But you're having one and if you call me _mister_ again, it'll be two!"

Bait winced as though Sonic had threatened him with a branding iron.

"How 'bout a shower?" he asked, in the manner of one offering an arm for amputation instead of a leg.

The hedgehog pretended to consider, then nodded. "Okay. _If_ they don't mind you using it, then fine. If they do, you're in the tub." He shook his head. "I don't know what your problem is; if there's a lake or a pond within five hundred yards I can't get you out of it, so how is that any different to a bath?"

"It jus' _is_! It's a jackal thing."

"Seems like more of a canine one to me," Sonic said flatly, "since I had exactly the same problems with Tails."

Bait froze. "Tails dunt like baths?"

"No more than you do." Now there was a distinctly cheerful note in the hedgehog's voice. "I could never get him into one unless I bribed him or carried him kicking and yelping into it." Sonic considered. "Of course, then I had just as much trouble getting him out again, once he started to enjoy it."

Bait folded his arms. "Mebbe a bath's not a bad idea after all. Long's I don't have to get it in my ears."

"That's up to you, kiddo," Sonic informed him. "If you still smell of pond scum when I get back though, I'll scrub you myself." He'd thought the remark about Tails would convince Bait; the jackal was almost pathologically frightened that Sonic was going to leave him, and went out of his way to avoid any of Tails' misdemeanours.

The jackal hesitated. "You said a shower'd be okay too, right?"

"If the Chaotix don't mind, then yes," Sonic said wearily. He was almost wishing he'd kept his mouth shut.

But then, he couldn't leave Bait smelling like he did, at least, not for very long. It wasn't fair on the jackal...or on the people who had to stand next to him, for that matter.

Thinking about baths brought a smile to Sonic's face as he remembered a certain incident in the Casino Zone. He, Knuckles and Tails had gone to a hotel to rest up before going grinding. Tails had still been in a foul mood over the journal incident and determined to win some compensation in the form of a bath-free night. The argument had gone on for a full half hour before Knuckles had stalked out of his room and into Sonic and Tails', grabbed the fox, strode into the bathroom with him and plunked him squarely in the full tub. The astonished look on Tails' face had caused Sonic to race out again rather hurriedly in an effort to control his laughter, and by the time he got back Knuckles had dumped a basin of water over the fox's head, scrubbed him hard – although not necessarily roughly – hoisted him out, let the water out and thrown a towel at Tails, telling him to 'get on with it and quit whining', resulting in Tails being very subdued for the rest of the evening. Like most (or all) of the echidna's methods, it was simple and almost crude, yet even Sonic couldn't deny that it was undeniably effective; Knuckles had accomplished in a couple of minutes a task which usually took the hedgehog at least fifteen, and that was on a good night.

A mischievous gleam crept into Sonic's eyes. Hm. Maybe he should try Knuckles' tactics at some point, or at least bribe the echidna to come down for a visit.

In the meantime, he had an evening with Amy Rose to survive...

**Okay, another chapter finished! (Looks around at Lara-Le fans waving signs and placards) What? You all said you wanted more of Sonic and Bait; I just answered that request (weg) Anyway, if you read, please review!**


	5. Mother and Son

**Kj: Thanks :) As for the rest of it...(laughs) C'mon, you don't really expect me to answer that question now, do you:P You do? Okay...I'll tell you this much; no, Sonic and Tails' mothers won't be putting in an appearance, since they're both dead (yes, dead for real) ;)**

**Moonpaw7: Heh, thanks, glad you liked it :D (_Tails: Well...I'll do my best but I wouldn't hold out a lot of hope_)**

**Riven K. Daniel: Thanks, glad you enjoyed it**

**Awdures: (grins) Yeah, well, I do tend to update at night a lot :P And thanks ;)**

**Matri90: Thanks**

**FriedBrickWall: Yep, and glad you liked it :P (_Sonic: It is not a date. It is a simple few hours out, that's all!_)**

**SaffraEchidna: (bows) Your wish is my command. At least, it is all the time it coincides with what I was gonna do anyway :P And thanks; I'm glad you liked it :D**

**Asher Tye: Heh, you're absolutely right; Bait did prove pretty useful in _Caves_ ;) As for Espio...well, he's still on tenterhooks about his brother's reappearance. He blames Knuckles and Tails for it, but since they're not around he's shifted the blame onto Sonic ;)**

**PyroHedgehog4Ever: You're right, there's plenty more Sonic and Bait in the works ;) But not until after this chapter :P**

_Guardian's Log no. 11487_

_I'm...I...well, there are no words for how I feel right now. I don't get it, plain and simple. I know my mother died when I was six, and I know because I damn well buried her! I don't know...hell, I don't know what I do know anymore._

_--Knuckles the Echidna_

_Dear Diary_

_Wow, Knux's mother's alive! Weird; I thought she was dead. And just for the record, Knux, I know you like me more than you do that dumb ol' Master Emerald, despite what you said!_

_--Tails_

"Your _what_?" Tails' jaw dropped and he stared at Knuckles. "You told me your mother died right next to you!"

"She did! At least...I thought she did..." Knuckles' voice trailed off in confusion and he glanced at Lara-Le, who was unconscious on his bed. With the state of her injuries that was hardly surprising, the echidna thought grimly. He hadn't thought anyone could be in worse shape than Tails, but he was wavering on that.

"So what happened?" Tails asked, studying Lara-Le curiously; he'd never seen a female echidna before.

"How the hell should I know?"

"You gotta talk to me about your mum's death, Knux, 'cause if you don't how'm I s'posed to help you figure this out?"

"I'm not the one who needs to talk about things," Knuckles said pointedly, and turned to go.

With surprising agility for someone with Tails' injuries, the fox darted in front of him and stood in the door, arms out to the side.

"Yes you _are_. You can yelp 'bout what's good for me and what's not—"

"That reminds me; your bandages need changing."

Tails shook his head. "Uh uh! Don't try and change the subject like that, Knux, 'cause it's not gonna work! Maybe you missed something when she died, something I can find."

"It's not going to help, Tails!"

Tails snorted. "Yeah, right. You're jus' scared to think about it. C'mon kid, talk to me," he added in a not too bad imitation of the echidna. Knuckles glowered at him and Tails returned the scowl. "Knux, you still might've made a mistake. You were younger'n me when she died, right?"

"Yeah. I was _also_ younger than you when I _buried_ her in Sandopolis, so unless she's learned to breathe sand, there is no way at all that she could be here."

"Yeah?" Tails scrambled clumsily up to sit on Knuckles' table, swinging his legs. "So what did happen? You've never said, not really."

"Hmm." Knuckles put one finger to his lips in an absurd parody of deep thinking. "Could that possibly be because I don't like to talk about it!" He practically snarled the last words at Tails, who knew the echidna too well and didn't even blink.

"I don't like to have a broken tail, but I still put up with it," Tails said reasonably. "C'mon Knux, tell me what happened."

The echidna shot him a killing look, then dropped into a chair.

"Not much to tell," Tails heard him mutter. "I was six years old and living with Lara-Le in a cave in the Red Mountain Zone. When my shift at the Master Emerald finished, she came to take me home and I thought that was odd at the time; usually I made my own way back. It was cold, so I remember snuggling into her body, much like you insist on doing to me every chance you get."

"I do not!" Tails said indignantly. "Only when...well, if it's cold it makes sense to snuggle up together and if I get a nightmare, I...well, I...I know how bad it can be so I _occasionally_ snuggle into you just in case you get one an' get all scared and junk. 'Cause, you know, nightmares can be catching. An' anyway, what happened next?"

Knuckles shrugged. "Something woke me the next morning. I've no idea what it was, but I remember trying to wake Lara-Le to ask or tell her about it, but she wouldn't wake up." He shifted, remembering the perplexity he'd felt as a puggle at this development. "I kept shaking her, but she wouldn't wake up." Knuckles looked away. "She wouldn't wake up," he repeated very quietly.

"So what happened?" Tails asked, after Knuckles had been silent for a few minutes.

The echidna shot him a startled glance – he'd all but forgotten Tails was there – then shrugged. "I panicked. I ran out the cave and into the Marble Garden Zone. I didn't go back home for at least six months."

"Huh? How come?"

"I...wanted to give it time," Knuckles said with unusual evasiveness. Something flickered in his eyes, some darker memory and he looked away again. "I buried Lara-Le in Sandopolis, like I said. I couldn't have been mistaken. It was her bones I buried."

"Then what's she doing here?" Tails said.

"_I don't know_!" Knuckles roared. "I don't know, alright, so quit asking me!"

Tails waited until the echoes had died away before protesting, "It's a fair enough question, Knucklehead! You don't have to _yell_ at me."

"My mother has just come back from the dead and you expect me to be calm and collected?"

"Nuh uh. But you don't have to take it out on _me_. I'da thought you'd be _pleased_ to see your mum again," Tails added. "I would be mine."

"You don't even remember her," Knuckles retorted, with far more emphasis than tact.

"I don't care! Knux, your mum's come back to you after you thought she was dead! You know how many little kids out there would love something like that?"

The echidna shot Tails a cold look. "I'm hardly a little kid, Tails."

"Then don't act like one," Tails retorted, then prudently stepped out of arm's range. "Why aren't you at least a little pleased?"

Knuckles shot him a look. "Why weren't _you_ pleased when I told you Sonic didn't die in that accident after all, that he was alive and I knew where to find him?"

"Because I thought he was dead! I'd only jus' gotten used to that idea when _you_ threw a curveball at me!"

"May I have some water?" Lara-Le's voice rose up behind them, cracked and dusty.

"For your information, Tails, that came as just as much of a surprise to me as it did you! At least you had some warning before you went in there; I just came face to face with Sonic and had to deal with it there and then! To be honest I barely knew him; Robotnik tortured him so badly he was beyond recognition. Or had you forgotten that little fact?"

"May I _please_ have some water?"

Tails folded his arms squarely, then wished he hadn't as pain shot through his injured wrist.

"No, Knux, I hadn't forgotten that little fact. And I've never forgotten the little fact that when we found him again, Sonic pretty much spat in my face and told me to take a long walk off a short pier and take you with me!"

"Yeah, okay, the guy was a jerk. I'm just saying that—"

A high-pitched shattering whistle cut Knuckles off and he looked around, startled, to where Lara-Le was lying, two fingers still in her mouth.

Tails' jaw dropped. "_Wow_!" He looked at Knuckles. "Can't you teach me to whistle like that?"

"No, you're noisy enough already," Knuckles told him in an aside, then returned his attention to Lara-Le. "So...you're awake?"

Lara-Le smiled weakly at him. "Hello squid."

Knuckles rubbed the back of his neck while Tails howled with laughter in the background.

"Uh, Lara-Le, about that nickname..."

Tails, who was busy trying to pour out water with his uninjured hand and stop laughing at the same time (and failing spectacularly on both counts) glanced around at Lara-Le.

"Did Knuckles _really_ eat too many lactoberries one time?"

"Tails!" Knuckles hissed.

"What? You said I could ask your mother if I ever met her."

"No," Lara-Le said, straight-faced. "He did it three times before he learned his lesson."

"I did _not_!"

"Didn't do it three times or didn't learn your lesson?" Tails dared to ask, then ducked the not quite friendly swipe the echidna took at him.

"So – not that I'm not happy to see you – why are you here?" Knuckles said flatly, taking the water from Tails and giving it to Lara-Le. "I thought you were dead. You decide to pop back here for a cup of ectoplasm?"

Lara-Le drank thirstily and lowered the mug enough to say, "Don't you take that haughty tone with me, Knuckles! You're not too big for another trip into a pricklebush!"

"You want a drink of water as well, kid?" Knuckles asked Tails, a little too politely.

The fox nodded vigorously, not trusting himself to speak; he didn't think he could open his mouth or even take his hand away from it without shrieking with laughter. He couldn't remember anyone daring to speak to Knuckles in such a tone.

"Yeah. I'll, uh, I'll go outside and, um, I'll just..." He turned and practically bolted, crashing through the door. A few seconds later, they heard his howls of laughter coming from outside.

"Who's your little friend?" Lara-Le asked.

"What? Oh. Tails. He's a good kid really."

The other echidna smiled up at him. "Just like you were, Knuckles."

Knuckles coughed, uneasy. Echidnas weren't great ones for compliments; in fact, there was an echidna superstition which said complimenting a child to his or her face was at least as unlucky as breaking a mirror.

Besides, memory was giving him the sneaking suspicion that this particular compliment wasn't exactly true. Mobians – even echidnas – had never heard of Dennis the Menace, otherwise Knuckles might have compared his own behaviour to that of the comic book character. As it was, all he could think of to say was, "You're too kind."

Lara-Le's smile became sad. "So formal. Don't you even remember your own mother, Knuckles?"

"Yeah, I remember," Knuckles said flatly. "I remember you supposedly dying right next to me. I remember burying you in Sandopolis as well, so would you mind telling me exactly what you think you're doing not being dead?"

Lara-Le looked away. "Robotnik came for the Master Emerald."

Knuckles squirmed. "That old story. Lara-Le, I know I made a mistake but jeez, that's no reason to come _haunt_ me about it."

"I'm not talking about what happened with you and Sonic – yes, I know about that – I'm talking about what happened that night. I defended the Master Emerald, but Robotnik still captured me and replaced me with a bot so you wouldn't notice anything."

"Pretty fast worker, huh?" Knuckles said flatly.

"I think he'd been planning this for a while. He had the bot all ready, I know that much." Lara-Le shook her head. "After a while he replaced it with an echidna skeleton; a real one. I don't know who you really buried in Sandopolis, Knuckles, but it wasn't me. I escaped Robotnik's fortress when it was destroyed and I've been trying to reach you ever since."

"You took your time." Jeez, what was _wrong_ with him? Knuckles wondered furiously. Tails was right; there were thousands of people who'd love to be in his position right now and he couldn't do anything except be ungrateful.

But damn, did his mother really expect to pick up where she'd left off after all those years?

"I'm going to go check on Tails," he said abruptly, whirled and strode out the door.

He'd been walking for about fifteen minutes, trying to make sense of things when a familiar tan and white figure scrambled out of the bushes and fell into step beside him.

"Hiya—"

"Don't," Knuckles warned, seeing the S start to form on Tails' lips.

"—Knux," Tails said, with an aggrieved look which said that this was what he'd meant to say all along. "How's she doing?"

"Alright under the circumstances."

There was an awkward silence. Knuckles could see that Tails was bursting with curiosity, but kept quiet. Too much had happened, too much in too little time, and he needed to come to terms with everything himself.

"Knux?" Tails said suddenly.

"Yeah...?"

"Why's she call you _squid_?"

"I don't know," Knuckles said testily. "Why don't you ask her? Didn't anyone ever give you nicknames when you were younger?"

Tails glanced away, ears drooping. "Sure they did. They used to give me nicknames like _freak_ and _loser_. Mostly _freak_ though; they liked that one. An' it makes a kinda sense, Knux; how many kids like me do you know?"

"What, kids with two tails, kids who are mechanical geniuses or just kids that bug the hell outta me?" Knuckles sniped. He regretted it instantly as he saw Tails' ears droop further. "Hey kid, I'm sorry. I didn't mean that last one."

"You didn't _have_ to take me, Knux."

"What the hell else was I supposed to do, leave you?"

"I thought..." Tails' voice petered out. "I thought that maybe...maybe you _wanted_ to."

Knuckles allowed the barest hint of a grin – just enough for Tails to notice – to appear on his face. "Wanted to? Wanted to bring along someone who has to dismantle everything he gets his hands on? Wanted to bring along someone who snores like a pneumatic drill? Wanted to bring along someone who keeps asking me embarrassing questions about the facts of life?"

Tails giggled. "Yeah, Knux." He shook his head. "Pumping it in?" he asked, still grinning broadly. Knuckles raised an eye ridge.

"I suppose you found out the rest of those facts down in the tunnels, huh?"

The fox dropped his eyes. "Yeah. Max told me. Wish we coulda got him out too."

Knuckles took a long deep breath. He'd always held that he never felt sorry for anything beyond his control, viewing it as useless and weak, but he did feel a slight pang of regret that he'd never be able to meet this Max.

"You can't save everyone, kid."

"I know. But you're gonna save the other echidna, right? An' you saved that iguana." Tails leaned down to pull a cratt off a nearby bush and bit into it, relishing the sticky sweetness of the violet fruit.

Knuckles looked away irritably. "Yeah, well...the kid helped me out. I owed him something."

"Yeff...well..." Tails tried unsuccessfully to free his mouth – the inside of a cratt fruit had a consistency much like runny toffee – and settled for prising his jaw open instead, "...y'r jft fay'ng zat 'cauf..." He broke off, used his fingers to scrape cratt goo off his teeth and tried again. "You're just saying that 'cause you gotta be the big tough echidna warrior type guy an' so you can't admit to ever doing anything nice for anyone else 'cause that's not what big tough echidna warrior type guys _do_." Tails paused for breath, bit hard into the side of his cratt fruit and yelped in dismay as the insides squirted out the other end, spattering his fur.

Knuckles rolled his eyes. "Oh great. Nice going. Can't you ever eat cleanly?"

"Not cratts," Tails said very reasonably, "'cause when you bite in at the top it all squirts out the bottom."

"Yeah, I noticed." Knuckles tried to clean some of the gunk off his boot, failing miserably. "Why don't you just squirt the syrup over pancakes or waffles like a regular kid?"

"'Cause I'm _not_ just a regular kid!" Tails retorted. "Anyway, they usually put lemon in the cratt syrup!"

"Yeah. That's because it's too damn sweet to have straight unless they're apparently like you and have no tastebuds. Oh...here." The echidna grabbed a handful of stream sponges and tried unsuccessfully to scrub the goo out of Tails' fur, finally giving up. "Jeez. Tails, get up to the hot springs and don't come down until you're your regular colour again."

Tails looked at him as though he'd sprouted an extra head. "And leave you alone with your mum? Are you crazy?"

"What do you think she's gonna do, kid? Since you ask, yes, I do want you to leave us alone for a couple minutes and you might as well use those minutes to clean yourself up. Get to the hot springs now or I'll carry you and dunk you in."

Tails hesitated, wondering whether it was worth arguing with Knuckles, then remembered what had happened the last time he'd tried that and gave in. Maybe if he scrubbed himself really hard...well, it would hurt his ribs and back, but it would also mean that he could get back to Knuckles that bit faster. Things looked like becoming very interesting, and Tails didn't want to miss them.

He broke into a run.

**Okay...maybe not much of a cliffhanger but I promise that'll change very soon ;) If you read, please review!**


	6. Departure

**SaffraEchidna: (grins) Yep, she sure does (_Knuckles: At last someone is sympathetic to my feelings!_) Yes, Squid. Now go sit back down on the couch and watch _Wyrd Sisters_.**

**Pyrokinetics: Heh...you sure have a lot of names :P (_Knuckles: Of all the—!_) Ignore him. And thanks; glad you're enjoying it :D**

**Kj: Sandbot? (scratches head) Don't remember mentioning a sandbot ;) As for the rest...maybe you're right and maybe you're not...you'll have to wait and see...**

**Awdures: Thanks :D Somehow I didn't think that Knuckles would be exactly over the moon shrieking with joy that his mother was alive ;)**

**Asher Tye: Heh. Yeah, if Sonic finds out, that'll be it for Knuckles ;) Hmm...maybe I should work that into the story somehow :P**

**Pyro Hedgehog4Ever: It does? I'm glad :P Thanks**

**Matri90: Thanks, I try ;)**

**FriedBrickWall: Okay. Serious cliffhangers will follow ;) Tails' fur...well, without getting a two-tailed fox and cratt to experiment with, I can't say for sure, but cratts themselves are a kind of deep violet all the way through (and tastewise...well, if you emptied a bag of caster sugar into a tub of golden syrup and poured a bottle of undiluted Ribena in as well, you'd get pretty close :P) ...so violet gunk plus tan/white fur...as for the Chao, probably not in this story but I'm thinking of extending my other story _Rescue Complete_ to deal some more with the Chao ;)**

_My Memoirs by Me_

_Well. That actually wasn't too bad. Me and Amy went out for dinner, then a movie, then we went bowling and we finished off in a disco. Pretty cool. She's nice when she's not shrieking about marriage and when we just go out as friends._

_Bad news; I'm now almost three hours late. I dunno where the time went; I looked at the clock when we started bowling and it was quarter to ten and when I looked again in the disco it was half past midnight. I managed to make it back to the CDA...now to just sneak upstairs without waking anyone..._

_--Sonic the Hedgehog_

_Bait's Jurnal_

_Sonic went owt with that girl Amy or watever her nayme is. He sed hed be bak at haf past ten but its layter than that and hes not bak. I hope hes ok._

_--Bait the Jakkel_

Despite his promise to Bait not to be back later than ten thirty pm, it was quarter to one when Sonic finally got back. He had, to his amazement, enjoyed himself immensely that night and even had half a mind to take Amy up on her offer of a repetition next week.

Sonic slid noiselessly up the stairs and opened the door leading to the room that he and Bait shared. One of them could quite easily have gone into Knuckles' old room, but Bait had looked so alarmed when Sonic had mentioned it that the hedgehog hadn't had the heart to pursue the subject.

Carefully, as silently as possible, Sonic stepped into the room.

A few seconds later he wondered why he'd bothered as something small, furry and extremely determined crashed into his midriff, sending him flying backwards into the opposite wall, knocking the hall table flying with a loud crash in the process.

"You're back!"

Sonic choked – Bait's greeting had been enthusiastic enough to knock the air from his lungs – and held off the jackal enough to look at him.

"Yeah, I'm back. And what the hell are you doing awake at this time?"

"Funnily enough," Espio said waspishly from his doorway, "that's just what I was asking myself."

"Then go back to sleep and you won't have to worry about it," Sonic shot back, and returned his attention to Bait, who had both big brown eyes fixed on him in an expression of mute appeal mixed with accusation.

"You been gone _ages_, Sonic, an' you _promised_ me you was gonna be back at ten! Half past at the latest was your exact words an' I was waitin' an' waitin' but you never come! I thought you'd gone for good!"

Sonic took a deep breath and went back into the bedroom, Bait padding along anxiously next to him.

"How many times do we have to go through this, Bait? I'm not gonna abandon you." He jerked his head towards the bed and Bait scrambled in obediently.

"That wunt what I meant, Sonic. I wondered, yeah, but I was more scared somethin' had happened to you. Where'd you _go_?"

"Dinner and a movie, followed by bowling and a dance in a nightclub. And you're not my mother, Bait, so I don't have to justify my actions to you."

Bait's ears flattened. "Just what?"

"Justify. Explain."

"Oh right. An' no you don't. But when you're four hours late—!"

"Three, and if you'd been asleep you wouldn't even have known about it." Sonic handed the covers to the jackal, who took them but made no move to get underneath.

"Yeah...I was," Bait said, squirming, "but I had to get up for a drinka water an' I looked at the clock an' it was half past eleven an' I couldn't find you..." He shifted his weight embarrassedly. "I really was worried somethin' bad had happened to you."

Sonic looked at him, saw the honesty in that liquid brown gaze and relented slightly. "I know, kiddo, and I'm sorry. Get some rest; I'll see you in the morning." He paused. "Later on in the morning, anyway," he added with a grin.

In fact, it was almost afternoon by the time Sonic woke up and came into the kitchen for breakfast...or at least, brunch. Bait, who had stayed in the bedroom with Sonic until hunger had driven him out for food, was steadily munching his way through his third helping of toast and voli jam when the hedgehog entered, yawning.

"Whass to eat?"

"Toaft?" Bait offered, around a mouthful of the toast in question. On the other side of the room, sorting through the last day's takings, Espio rolled his eyes. One of those people who eat to live, not the other way around, the chameleon found Bait's large appetite almost nauseating.

"Yeah...great." Yawning again, Sonic sat down and took a piece, buttering it and adding a generous amount of voli jam before putting another piece of buttered toast on top with a satisfactory splat and biting into his sandwich.

Then (and Sonic was convinced that Espio took a perverse pleasure in upsetting everyone and generally causing as much chaos as he possibly could) the chameleon said to Bait, "I spoke to your brother this morning."

The blood drained from the jackal's face and the toast dropped from suddenly numb fingers to land on the tablecloth.

"Yeah?" He struggled to keep his voice casual and unconcerned, and even Espio had to admit that he didn't do a bad job of it. "What'd he want?"

The chameleon folded his arms and stared mockingly at Bait. "Well, he thought he might pop in later for a spot of tea and knitting. What do you _think_ he wanted? He asked to hire the CDA to...how did he put it? Rescue his impressionable kid brother from the dangerous influence of a so-called hero who's already almost gotten him killed several times."

"Bait or Raker?" Sonic said flatly.

"Both, I imagine. He didn't manage to make our last appointment, probably due to the fact that you broke his hip but we blew him off anyway, so he's asked to reschedule for this afternoon."

"And you agreed, didn't you?" Sonic said, staring hard at Espio. "You sick, twisted—"

A shuriken flashed past his head and buried itself in the wall behind, effectively silencing him.

"Yes, I agreed. He's done nothing to anyone here—"

"Nothing?" Sonic echoed, outraged.

"Not to us. If we had to refuse everyone who offended or hurt people we know, we'd barely have any business at all."

"He has a hand in that slave ring down in those tunnels, Espio, and if he doesn't work there himself he knows people who does!"

"On'y for tradin'," Bait said hoarsely. "He used to transport the goods too, but then got high enough up to stop."

"The _goods_?" Sonic stared at Bait. "Bait, you're talking about _people_, real people who have been kidnapped or torn away from friends and family!"

Bait flattened his ears. "Yeah...'m sorry, but that's how he always said I should think of 'em, 'cause then it wunt so upsettin'."

"What, he used to take you with him?"

A nod. "Uh huh." Bait glanced away. "He used to take me an' make me watch. Said it was good trainin' so's I'd know not to annoy him. Look, you gotta remember that he ain't...he ain't sane like you are."

"Well, you're the first person who's ever called me sane, Bait," Sonic said lightly, then became serious again. "Look, what's the worst thing he could do to you now you're with me?"

"He'd kill me. Really kill, not jus' pretend kill."

"I doubt that. Believe me, there are far, far worse tortures in this world than mere death."

Bait sniffed. "What d'_you_ know 'bout tortures? You're Sonic the hedgehog! Nobody tortured _you_, Sonic, not never, 'cause nobody could ever catch you!"

Sonic smiled slightly, but there was no humour in it. "Wrong. Someone did catch me, and that someone tortured me physically, emotionally, mentally...every way you can think of, incessantly, day after day for months, until all I could think about was how much I wanted to die and let the pain end."

Bait stared at him, wide-eyed. "That's why you scream an' thrash about at night?"

Sonic glanced at him, startled. "I do?"

The jackal nodded. "Uh huh. An' sometimes you talk 'bout a treadmill an' sayin' how it burns. Didja go to a gym or somethin'?"

An icy chill shot through Sonic's veins at the memory...his feet catching fire and literally being ripped apart by friction..."No. No, I never went to a gym."

"Who tortured you?"

"Robotnik." Sonic bit the word off at the end. Even now, he couldn't bring himself to think about what he'd endured in that hell. "In the end it was Knuckles and Tails who saved me."

"Yeah?" Bait looked away. "Well, they like you. You dunt know ev'rythin' that went on in Raker's gang."

"You're damn straight." Sonic knew full well that the occasional snippets he'd managed to get out of Bait didn't even come close to encompassing all of it, that there had been a lot more going on in the jackal's past that Bait didn't even trust Sonic enough to talk about.

"Sonic, how much longer's Knuckles gonna keep blamin' me for what happened to Tails?" Bait said suddenly. It was clear from his expression that this had been playing on his mind for some time now.

Sonic grinned easily. "Kiddo, the first thing you learn when you spend any amount of time with ol' Knucklehead is that the only thing harder than getting him to accept a new idea or concept is getting him to let go of an old one. It's nothing personal to you." He shrugged. "Besides, he's not stupid. He knows you helped us out down there." When the jackal looked blank, Sonic added, "When you defused that bomb, remember?"

Bait flattened his ears. "Yeah, sure I remember. If it hadn't bin for Raker, we'd all be dead. I was gonna pull the wrong cable out. Face it, Sonic, I screwed up. I dropped you in them rapids back in Aquatic Ruin Zone, I was responsible for all them people dyin' in Oil Ocean—"

"You're not still feeling bad about that, are you?" Sonic said. "Look, for the last time, it wasn't your fault."

Bait looked away, clearly unconvinced and Sonic suppressed a sigh. He'd been trying to convince Bait that Raker's destroying an entire Zone had had nothing to do with him ever since they'd first arrived in Scrap Brain Zone, and he didn't seem to be getting anywhere with it.

"Sonic?" Espio said very quietly. "You know the CDA's policy."

"Yeah. You never turn down work that pays."

"Yeah, that. And once we take a case, we finish it. You know what that means, right?"

Sonic stared coolly at Espio. "Yeah. I think I do."

"Then if I were you, Sonic, I wouldn't be around when we take this particular case." Espio tossed a small bag to the hedgehog. "This should help you get clear."

Curious, Sonic opened the bag and looked inside, then almost choked at the ten-Mobium notes inside.

"Espio, I...thanks, but I can't take your money."

"It's alright," the chameleon said with a shrug, "it isn't mine. Take it, Sonic. You're going to need it."

Sonic stared at the chameleon. In all the time he'd known him, Espio had never deliberately misled him or steered him wrong.

"Okay," he said, just as softly, then raised his voice. "Bait, let's go."

"We're leavin'?" Bait said apprehensively.

"Yeah. C'mon."

The jackal glanced longingly at the toast, then put it aside obediently and followed Sonic.

"Where're we goin'?"

"I don't know yet. Seaside Hill Zone maybe; I've heard that's nice this time of year. It's also some two thousand miles from here, but we can get on the cable car network for most of that. You might as well take that toast with you as well; it'll save us having to stop."

Bait grabbed up the toast, crammed half of it into his mouth and the other half into his bag, then glanced up at Sonic nervously.

"It's to do with Raker, right?"

Sonic shook his head. "I don't know. But Espio doesn't usually kick people out without a very good reason. And getting the hell out of here before your brother shows up seems like a good enough reason to me."

"He's gonna keep chasin' us."

"Agreed, but at the very least we can choose where to stand and fight if we have to." Sonic opened the fridge, grabbed a carton of pella juice and stuffed it into his bag. "Now either you walk or I'm gonna carry you."

Bait winced. "Nuh uh!" The last time Sonic had tried carrying Bait (or to be more accurate, towing him behind) at supersonic speed the jackal had been sick, and judging by how fast he shot over to the door, he wanted to avoid a repetition. Fair enough; it hadn't been too pleasant for Sonic either.

"Okay. Let's move." Sonic didn't know if Raker was someone who was punctual, early or late, but the thought was spinning in the back of his mind that _this afternoon_ covered a whole range of hours, the first of which was already gone.

They didn't see any of the Chaotix on the way out, which surprised Sonic; he thought that Mighty at least would have said goodbye. The hedgehog grinned to himself. Probably out exploring again, as per usual. He was privately amazed that the armadillo had stuck around as long as he had.

Pausing at an intersection, Sonic and Bait looked over their shoulders at the CDA office. Living on the top floor had lent the Chaotix a certain advantage when it came to advertising; someone (and Sonic suspected Charmy) had fastened the red neon letters CDA to each of the four exterior walls, giving the impression that they owned the entire building as opposed to the penthouse apartment.

"You know, it's weird but I'm gonna miss that place," Sonic said lightly. Next to him, Bait squirmed, suddenly looking uneasy.

"Uh. Sonic?"

"Yeah?"

"You...uh...you never ast me when Raker liked me to blow stuff up..."

"Riiight..." Seeing Bait's expectant look, Sonic rolled his eyes. "Okay, fine. When did Raker like you to blow stuff up?"

Bait's look changed, became less expectant and more nervous. "Well...see, if summun screwed him over...kinda like your buddies back in there did when they dint meet with him that time..."

"_Have you done something to the CDA_?"

Bait opened his mouth – whether to confirm or deny Sonic didn't know – but at that point the CDA headquarters blew up.

**Okay, 'nother chapter done :P Hope you liked it and if you read, please review ;)**


	7. The Trials of Dictatorship

**Matri90: Thanks, glad to hear it :)**

**PyroHedgehog4Ever: One day I'll do two consecutive chapters, just to throw you ;) As to the rest...well, you'll find out in time :P **

**FriedBrickWall: Ah...but were they? ;) Heh...no, _Rescue Complete_ isn't the sequel to _Sins_...I do know what that sequel is going to be called now, but I don't want to spoil the surprise. Anyways, _Resuce Complete_ is a standalone short story I wrote a while ago featuring E-102 Gamma...it mentioned Chao in there. Maybe I'll extend it to write more about Chao. And hey, you were the one who said you liked cliffhangers (sighs) Guess there's no pleasing some people, huh? ;)**

**Kj: You'll find out ;)**

**Emotion: (smiles) Heh, thanks...as for the rest of it, you'll have to wait and see :P**

**Matt Lans: (groans at pun) And...well, you'll find out in good time ;)**

**Asher Tye: (grins broadly) But was it? Gotta wonder what Bait was about to say to Sonic before the explosion hit, huh? ;)**

**Toboe16: (jaw drops) Wow...that's quite some move :O And maybe Bait is innocent; you'll find out in the next chapter :P**

Robotnik was in a foul mood, and didn't care who knew about it.

"I don't recall _ever_ giving you permission to do something that crazy!" he all but shrieked at Raker, who sheered back, startled. He'd never heard of Robotnik losing his temper before, had even supposed that the doctor didn't have a temper to lose.

Then the thought of what he had down in the cargo hold drifted back into his consciousness and he smiled broadly. Oh man, was he going to have _fun_.

"I don't recall saying anything particularly amusing, either," Robotnik added, his voice now dangerously soft.

Raker sighed, already bored with this. "Look. You wanted the hedgehog, didn't you?"

"Yes, but funnily enough, I don't see him anywhere here."

"I got...impatient."

"You got careless."

Raker laughed boldly. "Hah. Right. Look, even Sonic thinks Bait planted that bomb." He considered. "I hadn't foreseen that, I must admit, but it was a handy development."

Robotnik took a long, deep breath. "Such timing – your brother's remark followed so soon by the explosion – could hardly be coincidence."

"Damn straight," Raker drawled.

"So...I know a good magician never tells his secrets, Raker, but indulge me. What exactly happened?"

Raker smirked. "You really think you're the only one who wants Sonic gone? I met up with a chameleon overseer called Lugnor down in the slave tunnels, just after Sonic assaulted me and broke my hip. I told Lugnor what he needed to know – namely where the hedgehog and his friends would be staying – and the guy took it upon himself to visit. He went invisible and planted several remote-activated bombs all around the building, then reappeared and acted like he'd only just arrived." Raker perched on a metal table, chin resting in his hand. "Turns out he had even more of a personal grudge against the CDA; he's Espio's brother."

Robotnik raised an eyebrow, this information new enough to smooth his hackles. "I didn't realise Espio had a brother."

Raker snorted. "Hell yeah. Got about twenty or thirty from what I hear, and that was just in the first clutch. Anyway, he was more than happy to plant the bombs and trigger it. He was watching Sonic and the bait walk away, invisible of course, and the timing was just too perfect."

Robotnik seized hold of the table in one hand and flipped it over, spilling Raker to the ground. "Yes, _perfect_, except for the little fact that not only did we miss Sonic but we put him on red alert! I wanted to catch him off guard!"

"You will," Raker said dismissively, getting up and dusting himself off. "Sonic's not going to connect the explosion with you, is he? If anything he thinks I bullied the bait into planting it."

"And did you?"

"You don't listen very well, do you? I already said I didn't. A couple of the CDA kept guarding him so fanatically that I couldn't get near him." Raker smirked. "You know, I'm starting to worry people don't trust me."

Robotnik, who never trusted anyone he hadn't built himself – with the possible exception of Daimeri – snorted.

"Are you planning to say all this to Sonic when he arrives?"

Raker laughed again. "Sonic? Sonic's finished with him! The chances of that hedgehog looking for the bait are minimal."

"You underestimate him," Robotnik said coldly. "I know Sonic. He'll come for Bait if only to get an explanation. And whether he believes the cub or not, he still won't let you play your little games with him. I wouldn't want to be in your shoes when he catches up with you; he has no tolerance for bullies."

"Yeah, I figured." Raker's hand hovered over his injured hip protectively. "Speaking of which, when are you going to fix me up like you promised?"

"Never, if you keep on like this."

The jackal whirled. "Hey, don't take your frustrations out on me, eggbutt! I did my bit! It's your fault you weren't able to capture Sonic."

Robotnik's hand clenched into a fist then, with a great effort, he uncurled it. "No, it's yours. You blew up the CDA headquarters, which will draw the attention of the Chaotix unwaveringly towards you, and what was the result? An injured hedgehog, three insurance agents on the verge of nervous breakdowns and one – count it, _one_ – fatality! I suppose that was something of a plus, but I imagine the Chaotix have already started working on his replacement. You've bought yourself a few days at best before they come looking for you."

The jackal leaned back on one foot, arms folded across his chest and stared at Robotnik arrogantly. "I'm not afraid of a bunch of amateur detectives. I survived everything they had to throw at me."

Robotnik rolled his eyes. Had he ever been this self-assured, so convinced of his own invulnerability? If he had, thank the Emeralds he hadn't known about it.

"They haven't thrown anything at you yet." When Raker continued to look obstinate, Robotnik sighed. "Look. As far as the CDA are concerned, there are three kinds of people in this world; a) those who owe them money, b) those who don't and c) those they want to get rid of as soon as possible. So far, you have fallen into category b) with the distinct possibility of moving into a) if they decided to take your case, and I understand it's extremely rare for them to turn down clients. Now you've revealed yourself as an enemy by blowing up their HQ...they're going to want you eliminated as soon as possible."

"Like I said, I'm not scared of a bunch of amateur detectives. Besides, how are they going to know it was me? Sonic – when he regains consciousness – is very kindly going to point the finger at Bait, and the CDA know him well enough to know he won't make accusations like that without some real proof. His word will be good enough to convince them."

Robotnik rubbed his forehead, wishing like hell that he'd waited before sending Daimeri off on her latest assignment. At least she had a modicum of sense and would have been able to silence this pup, if only by threatening to cut out his tongue.

"The CDA will not take the word of _anybody_. They'll look for their own proof, and when they find it, they'll come looking for you."

Raker sneered. "And I'll deny everything. Who do you think they'll believe, the seventeen year old orphaned jackal or the fat megalomaniac with his own munitions factory? Your record isn't exactly clean, doc."

"Neither is yours." Although Robotnik's tone wasn't exactly angry, it did carry subtle overtones of menace along with the assurance that certain people were going to regret _fat megalomaniac_. "And Sonic won't be fooled. He knows I wouldn't do something as crazy as that."

Raker laughed. "No, Sonic suspects Bait, remember?" He shook his head, grinning broadly. "Now that's what you call poetic justice. Funny, if the kid hadn't tried to warn Sonic in his roundabout way, he wouldn't be in this mess, or in such anguish. Personally I doubt that even I can make him feel worse or more miserable than he does right now, but I'll have a damn good try."

"You'll do no such thing, Raker."

"What?" Raker froze on his way out, then whirled. "What do you mean? We had a _deal_!"

"Yes, we did." Robotnik made an L-shape with his finger and thumb and rested his jaw on it. "I said I'd let you keep your little brother. I never said for how long. I need him."

An ugly light flashed in Raker's eyes. "So do I!"

"Yes, but I had another purpose in mind besides a scratching post," Robotnik informed him pleasantly. "Sonic won't come for a dead jackal."

Raker snorted. "He won't come, period. How many times do I have to tell you; he thinks Bait destroyed the CDA and killed one of his friends."

"And how many times do I have to tell _you_, Raker, that you don't know Sonic like I do?" Robotnik said in icy tones. "The hedgehog _will_ come, and I intend for my own hands to be clean when he arrives." He settled back, folding his hands comfortably across his ample belly. "I suppose your recklessness served some purpose; now when Sonic asks me what I did, I can honestly say _nothing_. But he won't turn up if Bait's dead."

Raker's eyes glittered. "Perhaps. Perhaps not. But...how shall I put this? There are several intervening stages between _life_ and _death_, am I right?"

Robotnik closed his eyes, thinking as he did so that this was precisely why he liked mechanical accomplices so much.

"If Sonic finds Bait dead, he will kill us both. I'm not joking. Not many people ever get to see the hedgehog's temper, but believe me, he has one."

"I'm not afraid of Sonic."

"Then you're either stupid or insane." Robotnik considered. "Or both, I suppose."

"Yeah?" Raker raised his eyebrows. "So which are you?"

"Neither, thankyou. I'm not afraid of Sonic because I know there's very little chance he'll actually kill me. But that doesn't mean I don't have a healthy respect for the rodent."

Raker shook his head, clicking his tongue. "Doc, if I qualify for Sonic's hit list, then you definitely do. What makes you think he'd leave you of all people alive, if he had a chance to finish you once and for all?"

"A number of reasons, Raker, and I doubt you'd understand any of them since they involve concepts you have no idea about. They're also none of your business, so I would advise you to keep your mouth shut." The doctor flipped open a panel and started fiddling with the wiring underneath, more for the effect than any electrical necessity. "Now why don't you go and play with your new toy? And remember; if you want to torture Bait, you can, but I want him left alive and _coherent_." Robotnik stressed the last word as much as he could. He knew better than anyone what too much torture could do; he liked to indulge in it himself as much as possible.

Several floors below, with a pounding headache and bruises on just about every part of his body – an aftermath of the explosion – Bait opened his eyes the merest slit and froze. He was curled up in a cage, one so small that the bars pressed in on every part of his body. It was an odd shape too, being spherical as opposed to square. It was like being trapped inside a ball, a ball two sizes too small for his body.

Had Sonic done this to him? No, not likely; Sonic wouldn't do anything like that, even if he did think the jackal had blown up the CDA. Bait himself had been knocked out by the explosion, and the last thing he really remembered seeing and hearing was Sonic's accusation. Was Sonic still alive?

Bait covered his face with his hands and whined softly, a sound of pure anguish. He didn't care about being imprisoned – well, he did, but he'd been locked in a cage like this one before and survived – all he cared about was whether Sonic had survived.

He could still see the hedgehog's expression in front of him, could still see the sudden suspicion and anger that had appeared there. Sonic blamed him for the explosion. Bait hadn't been responsible – he didn't even know how Raker had done it – and he'd tried to warn Sonic, but it had been too late.

Sonic thought he'd done it. Bait didn't blame him, but he wished it could have happened thirty seconds earlier, when everything was still good between them.

That was the worst possible thing, in Bait's mind, that the hedgehog thought it was his fault. The jackal had been doing everything in his power to convince Sonic that he'd changed, that Sonic had been right to trust him and then something like that happened.

Bait closed his eyes. He didn't know where he was or how he'd got there, but he knew it was trouble. Whatever was going to happen...well, it wouldn't be good, but if Sonic had survived...

Movement drew his attention to the left and he struggled to see in the gloom.

"Who's there?" he demanded, and was quite proud when his voice didn't tremble.

Soft footsteps, just loud enough to be heard, sounded in the room.

"Hello little brother." Raker stepped into the light, smiling broadly. "Long time no see."

**Okay, short but sweet...actually, on second thoughts, it's probably just short ;) Still, I didn't want poor Bait carrying the can for any longer than he had to :P If you read, please review!**


	8. Echidna Family History

**PyroHedgehog4Ever: You'll find out about the fatality in due time ;) As for how I keep track of the storylines...hmm, sometimes I wonder that myself :P And...no, I don't think Knuckles would be happier to meet his mother; he's pleased but not exactly happy since he's more or less in shock at the fact ;)**

**Kj: Thanks, glad you liked it :)**

**Asher Tye: Thanks. Buildings go boom...I love that :D And the one who bit the dust...you'll find out :P**

**Shadow-spawn180: (blushes) Thanks. You'll find out who died in the next chapter ;) As to the rest of it...you'll have to wait and see :P**

**Toboe16: Yeah...poor Bait. As to the footsteps...erm...if you say so :P **

**FriedBrickWall: (jaw drops) It's not accepting reviews? (panics then calms down) Hm...wonder why :S Anyway, as for the casualty, you'll find out next chapter :P And (belated) Happy Valentine's Day to you too :D**

_Guardian's Log no. 11488_

_So Robotnik traded bodies with my mother. Wait, that didn't come out right. I meant he traded a robot body (and later real bones) for my mother's living body. I don't fully understand why, but I guess a lot of what he does defies explanation._

_I'm still a little dazed from what's happened. I don't know what to think. Part of me's glad, but the other part of me wishes Lara-Le had never arrived, callous as that may seem. Isn't my life complicated enough without family members coming back from the dead?_

_--Knuckles the Echidna_

_Dear Diary_

_I'm not sure what to make of Knuckles' mum. She seems nice, but...I dunno. I get the same kinda feeling I got from some of those kids in Emerald Hill Zone when I was a little cub; they were only ever nice to me when they were leading up to something nasty._

_On the other hand, she escaped Robotnik. I guess that's something, and she's all bloody so he must have tortured her, and for years. Maybe she's just suffering from that like Sonic did._

_--Tails_

The ornament on Knuckles' windowsill was one of the only possessions he really prized; it had belonged to his father Locke and was all he had to remind him of the older echidna.

It was also one of those vague shapes, called "art" by some, "an expression of torment/sadness/joy/love" by others and "some new-fangled doohickey" by Mighty when he'd first seen it. Made entirely of clay that was painted white on top and black on the base, it would be hard pushed to call it anything other than a three dimensional squiggle...although if Knuckles had ever seen a kneading attachment for a mixer, he might have compared the two.

At the moment, however, he was too busy staring down at the floor, or to be precise, that part of the floor which now held the broken remains of his treasured ornament.

Knuckles stared at the shattered figurine for a long, long time, then unbolted and yanked the front door open.

"TAILS!"

"Huh?" The voice came from above and Knuckles glanced up to see Tails lying on the roof. "Whassup Knux?"

"You get yourself down here _right now_!"

Alarmed now, Tails obeyed, wincing slightly as the drop jarred his injuries. "Knux, why're you mad? What'd I do?"

"Inside!" Knuckles only just stopped himself shoving the fox, reminding himself that Tails was still badly hurt.

Tails obeyed with as much speed as his battered body would allow, fixing a look on Knuckles that was half confused, half appealing. "Knux, what's wrong?"

"_This_!" Knuckles pointed to the shattered ornament. Tails followed his finger and his eyes widened.

"Ooh. Did you break it?"

"Did I—no I damn well didn't! Unlike you, I don't go out through the window! Tails, you _swore_ to me that you were going to use the door!"

"Huh?" Big-eyed, Tails stared at Knuckles. "I did, Knux, honest. I wouldn't break that ornament on purpose, you know that."

The echidna shook his head. "I didn't say you did it on purpose. I just said you did it."

"But...Knux, I haven't gone out the window. I used the door."

Knuckles sighed. "How dumb do you think I am, Tails? I suppose after you walked out the door you clambered back in and bolted it again from the inside?"

"I can't reach the top bolt."

"You climbed up to the roof, kid. You could have climbed up there."

Tails started to shake his head, then stopped.

"Memory coming back, is it?" Knuckles said coolly.

"Uh uh. But...Knux, I forgot 'bout attacking you. Maybe I forgot 'bout that as well. If I did, I'm real sorry, you gotta believe me; I'd never do anything to upset you or make you mad, honest."

Knuckles heaved a sigh. "Alright kid. Go on back to your nap."

Tails shook his head. "I think I'll go for a...a..." He racked his brains for the Sagayan word for _walk_ and eventually came up with, "a _bana-ma_."

Knuckles rolled his eyes. "That's the verb, not the noun, but okay." He couldn't suppress a slight smile; Tails had taken it upon himself to learn the echidna language not long ago, and even Knuckles had to admit he was making good progress.

"A _bala_?" Tails guessed again as they came out to where Lara-Le was sitting on a rock.

"That's _butterfly_," Knuckles said wryly. "Go on, kid, go for your walk. I'll see you later."

"I'm not sure I approve of your teaching that fox our language," Lara-Le said, glancing in the direction Tails had taken; a direction leading to Ice Cap Zone.

"I didn't," Knuckles said shortly. "He taught himself."

Lara-Le sighed, the sigh of a parent forced into an unpleasant duty. "Knuckles, you remember the lessons I taught you when you were a puggle?"

The echidna folded his arms stubbornly. "Which lessons would those be, Lara-Le? You taught me so many. Let's see...never look away from the Master Emerald, never allow anyone who wasn't a Guardian or Guardian-in-training to see it, never use its power unless in an emergency...hmm, I don't remember you ever telling me not to allow a two-tailed fox kid to teach himself Sagayan out of the old echidna logs."

Lara-Le stared. "What old echidna logs?"

Knuckles smirked slightly. "Tails found the caves of the ancients, and the logs. He taught himself to read our language..." His voice trailed off; he didn't feel comfortable with the use of the word _our_. For almost his entire life, it had only ever been _me, mine_.

"Show me!"

The echidna shook his head. "I can't. Tails is the only one who knows where they are."

"Then make him show us!"

Knuckles stared at Lara-Le and allowed the barest edge to creep into his voice. "Tails is my friend, Lara-Le. I don't _make_ my friends do anything, and in this case I wouldn't if I did. That poor kid still has screaming nightmares about the time he spent down there. I'm not going to ask him to go back."

Lara-Le shook her head. "You wouldn't have to leave him there, Knuckles. I'm sure there's a family on Mobius who'd take him in."

Knuckles curled his lip. "That's what this is all about, huh? You don't care about any ancient texts; you just want Tails off Angel Island, although he's never done anything to you."

"Outsiders are not permitted here. You _know_ that."

"I know I'm the Guardian, Lara-Le, and the master of Angel Island. If I say Tails stays, he stays."

Lara-Le folded her arms coldly. "What about your duty? Are you refusing to remain loyal to your own people?"

Knuckles whirled. "Hey, I'm not the one who's been alive all these years and couldn't be bothered to make contact, _mother_, so don't talk to me about loyalty!"

"Knuckles!"

"Don't _Knuckles_ me, Lara-Le. Sonic has destroyed a lot of Robotnik's bases over the years, and freed all the prisoners before now. To me that says you've most likely been free and wandering around doing your own thing for ten years and yet you couldn't even be bothered to get in touch somehow, to tell me you were alright."

Lara-Le, who had paled at her son's vehemence, stood up rather suddenly. "Because I knew if I came back you'd react like this!"

"Then why the hell didn't you just stay gone?" Knuckles shot back, before he could stop himself.

Lara-Le shifted. "Because...I couldn't stay gone, Knuckles. I still love you, you must know that."

The echidna looked away curtly. "Yeah, well, I don't love you, Lara-Le. Not because of anything you've said or done, but because I don't know you. Maybe I could get to love you, but that's going to take time. I was six years old when you supposedly died, heartbroken and terrified at the time and now you waltz back into my life ten years later and say you didn't die, you just left. How am I supposed to feel about that? Happy?"

Lara-Le's mouth opened and shut a few times but no sound came out. Eventually she said, "You should be at the shrine, Knuckles. Why aren't you guarding the Master Emerald?"

It was only with a supreme effort that Knuckles managed to refrain from grabbing his mother and shaking her until her teeth rattled. Instead he gave a harsh bark of laughter.

"Is that all you have to say to me, Lara-Le? After all this time, all you want to know is why I'm not living by the shrine twenty four seven? Tell me honestly; did you come to check on me or the Master Emerald?"

"Both," Lara-Le admitted. "But—"

Tails' high yelp from down the track cut her off, and Knuckles started towards the sound, only to have Lara-Le grab his arm.

"Leave him! Your duty is to protect the Master Emerald, no matter what the cost! He's just a fox, Knuckles. Get back to guarding the Master Emerald."

Knuckles stared at Lara-Le, who suddenly seemed to realise that she'd made a tactical error.

"The Master Emerald?" he repeated very softly. "Lara-Le, it's a damn rock. Go into the mountains. There's millions of them."

The backhand slap rocked his head back and to one side. Knuckles was too large and too heavy for his mother's hand to send him tail over snout into a pricklebush like it had when he was a puggle, but it was still a force to be reckoned with. Before he knew what he was doing, he'd slapped her back, hard.

"Things have changed, Lara-Le," he said flatly. "I'm not a puggle any more."

Whirling, he stalked off into the undergrowth, following the direction of Tails' yelps.

It didn't take him long to find the fox. Tails hadn't been moving very fast, and apparently hadn't been paying attention to where he was going either; he'd wandered onto a crumbling cliff and was currently hanging one-handed over the river Buragu, renowned among echidnas for being the only place on Mobius where iksors still swam...or right now, jumped in an effort to take a chunk out of the furry meal above them. Hurling himself to the ground, Knuckles seized Tails by the good wrist and hauled him out of reach.

"Knux!" Tails attempted to clamber up the echidna's body in an effort to escape, looking over his shoulder.

"Tails, quit wriggling!" Knuckles said sharply as he half backed, half fell away from the edge. "I'm not gonna drop you."

"Knux, what're those things?"

"Iksors," the echidna said flatly. "Kinda like a cross between dolphins and piranhas. I'm not sure how they've survived as long as they have, considering they've eaten everything organic that was ever in that river, but I guess they must have worked something out. They're most likely cannibals, but they'll take a bite out of anything dumb enough to fall into their river."

Tails edged to the brink of the cliff, looking down at the multicoloured fish. "But Knux, they're so pretty."

One determined iksor leapt a full five feet out of the water, razor teeth snapping futilely at the air, and Tails jerked back reflexively.

"Pretty? Sure, I guess," Knuckles said flatly. "They're also vicious, deadly and can reduce a grown echidna to nothing in five seconds flat."

Tails shivered. "I jus' wanted a closer look, 'sall. I've never seen...what did you call them? Iksors? I've never seen iksors before."

"You won't have done. They became extinct on Mobius – at least the surface – some three hundred years ago." Knuckles looked down at the fish. "They are pretty, Tails, sure, but so's an erupting volcano in its own way."

Tails squinted at Knuckles, seeing him properly for the first time. "Are you okay, Knux?"

"What?" The echidna's voice was edgy. "Yeah. Why?"

"You got a red bit on your face jus' there." Tails pointed carefully. "Kinda like a heat rash." He squinted. "Actually, it's more like someone whacked you right in the—"

"You know, it would be a very good thing for both of us if you did not finish that sentence," Knuckles informed the fox through clenched teeth.

"But did someone—"

"Tails!" Knuckles cast about for a safe change of subject and found one. "Are you okay? The iksors didn't bite you?"

Tails snorted. "Like one could do any damage out the water."

Knuckles swatted him lightly on the shoulder. "Don't dismiss them so easily, Tails. Iksors have a narcotic saliva; in other words, one bite and the bitten area goes numb in about half a second. If that area's a foot..." He let the sentence trail off impressively.

Tails winced and Knuckles kicked himself. To paraphrase Sonic, he hadn't brought the kid all this way to terrorise him.

Catching sight of a certain tree, inspiration struck Knuckles.

"Here." Pulling a vivid orange fruit off the branch, he tossed it at Tails.

The fox caught it reflexively and eyed it with open suspicion. "What's this?"

"A suma fruit. They only grow on Angel Island and they're coming into season. Try it."

Tails sniffed the suma once or twice, then took an enormous bite and promptly choked.

"Oh man, Knux, that's _bitter_!"

"Well...yeah," the echidna said, keeping his tone as neutral as possible. "That could be because you're supposed to peel 'em first."

Tails glowered at him. "You could've said!"

"Sorry, kid. I thought it was obvious." Knuckles hesitated, then sighed. "Tails, this blanking out of events—"

"I'm fine, Knux! Honest!"

The echidna sighed again. "Kid, I'm sick of saying this, so this'll be the last time. You need to talk about whatever's freaking you out. I'm not gonna push you. I'm just going to tell you that I'll listen whenever you're ready. Anytime; I don't care if you want to wake me up in the small hours or what, understand?"

Tails shivered, then nodded.

"In the meantime, _try_ to stay out of Ice Cap Zone, okay? I didn't save you from slavers and mercenaries just to have you die of hypothermia. Why can't you stay in Red Mountain or something?"

Tails flattened his ears. "Nuh uh! I...I don't like caves, Knux. Not any more. Ice Cap's cool 'cause it's outside, it's starry an' I can see the dancing lights."

Knuckles rolled his eyes. "You can see those anywhere on Angel Island, Tails, at least until we drift out of the northern polar region!"

"I know...but they reflect off the snow. Knux, I'd make a tent or something but that'd just make me feel all closed in again."

Knuckles opened his mouth, then closed it as something struck him.

"You could use clear tarpaulin, if we could find any," he offered. "That'd keep you warm and dry and you'd still be able to see the sky.

He'd gone a good three yards before he realised that Tails was no longer keeping pace with him. Turning, Knuckles saw the fox standing there, jaw dangling.

"Knux, that's brilliant! Where can we get some?"

"I'll ask the CDA." Knuckles would have gone himself if it cheered the fox up. "They can usually find anything they want. Until then, we're going back to the hut. If you don't want to sleep inside, fine, but you can at least sleep in a warmer Zone."

Tails hesitated. "I'm real tired, Knux. Carry me?"

The echidna folded his arms and stared hard at Tails. "Why should I carry you when you have two perfectly good feet of your own? Why do you think people have legs and feet in the first place?"

"Um..." Tails pretended to consider for all of three seconds. "To wrap 'round the waist of really cool echidnas who're gonna give them a ride back to the hut?"

Knuckles' mouth twitched. "Hmph. Full marks for originality and quick thinking, I guess." He rolled his eyes. "Alright, come on." He reached down and hoisted Tails into the air. "But don't get any cute ideas about making this a habit, Tails! I'm not a transport vehicle."

Tails peered over Knuckles' shoulder. "You could be. We could give you roller blades an' strap a jet propulsion engine to your butt."

"You would too, wouldn't you?"

Tails nodded eagerly. "Uh huh. An' then we could fasten a sled or something behind you!" He squinted at Knuckles. "Solid red's kinda boring though. Maybe we could paint racing stripes on your head and around your spines."

"And _maybe_ I could dump you on your behind in this muddy puddle, let your tail get infected and gangrenous and call Sonic in to spindash it off."

Tails giggled. "Sonic wouldn't slice it off before when I asked him, so I doubt he'd do it now."

Knuckles prised the fox off him and held him at arm's length to look into his face. "You _asked_ Sonic to cut off one of your tails?"

Tails nodded. "Uh huh, when I was real young. He refused. I'm kinda glad about that really; life wouldn't be the same without being able to fly."

"Tails, why the _hell_ would you—actually, on second thoughts, I don't think I want to know." Knuckles shifted his grip and resumed walking.

By the time they made it back to the hut, Tails was already asleep. Lara-Le rose to meet them.

"Knuckles, you're back. I managed to bring in some food for you." She nodded towards a pile of pellas. Knuckles shot them a look, then lowered Tails gently to the ground.

"Give 'em to the kid, when he wakes up. I have to get back to guarding the Master Emerald."

Lara-Le flinched as Knuckles fired her own words back at her. "Knuckles...what I said earlier, I was...listen, I came to warn you about something."

"First you came to check on me, then you tell me you actually came to see the Master Emerald, now you're saying you came to warn me," Knuckles sniped. "Jeez, Lara-Le, would it be too much to ask if you could make up your mind?"

His mother tensed. "You might make more of an effort, Knuckles."

"To do what?" Knuckles said incredulously. "Let's just get the facts together, shall we? You left me ten years ago, left me to think you were dead. You then mysteriously reappear after those ten years have passed and expect everything to be the same as it was when you left it. Well, guess what, Lara-Le? It's damn well not!"

"Robotnik is planning something."

"He's an evil genius stroke mad scientist bent on taking over the world," Knuckles said flatly. "When is he ever _not_ planning something?"

Lara-Le folded her arms. "This one might _work_, Knuckles. He's got a new agent, one who goes by the name Daimeri. Nobody knows much about this agent, but apparently he or she is very familiar with Angel Island! Robotnik plans to use Daimeri to steal the Master Emerald."

"And you think...what? You think that _Tails_ is a secret agent?" Knuckles snorted. "Fat chance! The kid hates Robotnik even more than you or I do."

"I'm just saying you should be on guard, Knuckles. You're the Guardian, and it's best if you don't take anyone on blind faith."

"I never do," Knuckles shot back. "Thanks for the warning, but if you'll excuse me, I'm late for my shift." This was said with a biting sarcasm that wasn't lost on Lara-Le, who averted her gaze.

Spinning around, Knuckles strode away towards the Master Emerald. Terrible as it might have seemed, he was beginning to wish his mother had never showed up.

He'd been gone for at least three hours when Tails jerked awake, sitting bolt upright and wincing as the action caused pain to shoot through his body. Something had woken him, hadn't it, some kind of...not a dream, but more like a vision...he'd been on Angel Island, but an Angel Island as it must have been in its glory days, filled with echidna warriors. Tails had been surprised, and more than a little relieved, when none of them attacked him. He'd met a female echidna, one who was...was...Tails frowned as he tried to remember. Something had clicked in his mind while he'd been there, though, something that he realised had been bothering him for a while now.

Trying to puzzle out how best to handle this latest development, Tails abruptly got to his feet and padded over to where Lara-Le was sitting with a glass of water.

"C'n I ask you something?" he said abruptly.

Lara-Le shot him a slightly nervous look – the solemn expression on Tails' face was one that most people learned to dread – then nodded.

"Of course. What do you want to know?"

"Robotnik swapped your body with a robot, right?"

"Yes."

"How come?" When Lara-Le looked perplexed, Tails plunged ahead. "'Cause Knux said you supposedly died ten years ago, but Robotnik on'y appeared on the scene four or five years ago. So how could he've swapped you when he didn't even exist back then?"

Lara-Le continued to stare at Tails for a few minutes, then suddenly smiled. "Tails, I think I feel like taking a walk. Come with me."

Tails took half a step back. "You're not gonna go past the icky fish are you?"

"Icky...? Oh, the iksors? No, I'm not." Lara-Le stood up. "Come with me, Tails," she repeated.

Somewhat warily, Tails obeyed, following the echidna down an overgrown path – which Lara-Le cleared for him with a modicum of effort – and up into the mountains. His injuries meant he was gasping for breath before they were more than halfway there, but Lara-Le never slowed, never stopped, never even looked around until they were in the mouth of a cave, and even then it was only because Tails had said, "No."

"Why not? It's perfectly safe."

The fox shook his head stubbornly. "I don't like caves, not any more. Whatever you wanna talk about, we can talk here. Dunno why we couldn't've talked back at the hut either," he muttered, not quite under his breath.

"Tails, trust me. Knuckles trusts me, and you trust him, don't you?" When Tails nodded, albeit hesitantly, Lara-Le's smile broadened. "Good. Come on."

Nervously, Tails followed her into the cave. The darkness was helped by the phosphorescent crystals placed in the walls, but he still wasn't happy.

"Who put these here?" he asked suddenly, pointing to the crystals. Lara-Le didn't even look around as she answered, "I did. Those crystals will glow naturally in the dark forever. This is where we used to live when Knuckles was a puggle." She paused in the mouth of another tunnel, this one culminating rather abruptly in a sheer drop. "Don't tell my son I brought you here. He's so territorial, he may not like it, but I think you need to understand." Lara-Le pointed. "Look down there."

Somewhat hesitantly, Tails obeyed, peering over the edge of the precipice to see the bones of an echidna, lying where they had been impaled on the spikes below years before.

"Knuckles' father Locke," Lara-Le said simply. "He was the Guardian before Knuckles, only he got caught in one of his own traps."

Tails never knew how he was suddenly able to see to the heart of the matter, but he knew that the realisation which flashed into his head at that point was very, very real.

"You killed him," he said softly.

"He was weak. He couldn't see the true potential of the Master Emerald, what it could achieve." Lara-Le's eyes glittered with a diamond fever as she strode towards Tails, who backed away, matching her step for step. "Make no mistake, I have waited eleven years for this. I cannot, _will_ not allow some trumped-up cub with ideas of grandeur to ruin it! Do you understand me?"

Tails' back hit a wall and he yelped as it jarred his sore tail.

"I'll tell Knuckles," he panted. "I'll tell him and he'll throw you off the Island."

"Go right ahead." Now Lara-Le looked distinctly bored. "Who do you think he'll trust more, a whiny brat who's done nothing but take up his time and resources without giving anything back, or his own mother? After all, _everyone _knows that echidnas are completely open and honest, particularly with each other."

Tails hunched back, noticing for the first time that echidnas were also larger and stronger than foxes, especially young ones.

"What're you gonna do with us? Me an' Knux?"

"Oh, there's no need to be concerned about Knuckles. Why should I hurt my own son?"

"You hurt his father." Tails winced as Lara-Le leaned in, seizing him by the shoulders. The grip itself was almost gentle, until you took into account that it was pressing his broken tail hard against the wall.

"Locke's death was a necessity, and a regrettable one. I truly never intended for Knuckles to find his body, at least, not so soon after death. But Knuckles' father was weak, unable to see past the end of his snout. Those Emeralds, including the Master Emerald, endow their wielder with godlike powers. He took the duties seriously, insisting that we shouldn't use those powers. Pah!" Lara-Le spat onto the ground. "I'm sure Knuckles will be a little more cooperative, but if he isn't then there's always room for one more on those spikes. In fact, I think it would have a certain kind of poetic justice, don't you?" She lunged, shifting her grip on Tails to around his throat, and lowered her voice. "So you just think about that, little cub. Think about it long and hard, and think about all the things I can do to you if you cross me."

Tails fought down an urge to struggle and managed to look her squarely in the eyes.

"I'm not scared of you," he lied boldly.

"Well, we'll have to do something about that, won't we? And soon, because I rather feel that my son is going to want you gone any minute now. He is the Guardian of the Master Emerald. He's got better, more important things to do than play errand-puggle for some spoilt kid like you." Lara-Le shook her head. "Take my advice. Get off the island. You're not welcome here, you've never been welcome here and you never will be either." She shifted her hold. "Leave this place before Knuckles decides to drop the act he's put on for you. My son is not known for either patience or kindness."

"You're lying! And Knuckles _will_ believe me; he helped me loads of times before—"

"Proving nothing except that you must have been a serious nuisance to him." Lara-Le leaned in closer to speak softly into Tails' ear. "I'm being _nice_, furball. I can be nasty, if you want. Would you like that? I know the place where they shattered your tail, the place Knuckles had to drag you out of because you were too pathetic to escape yourself. I know where that place is. Would you like me to send you back there?"

Tails' ears flattened. He'd seen what happened to runaways in the tunnels. He couldn't go back. He couldn't!

"If that's what I gotta do to stop you hurting Knux, then sure!" he said boldly, and hoped that Lara-Le didn't pick up on the quiver in his voice. Judging from the cool smile on her face, however, he was out of luck.

"You still don't understand, do you? Alright, let me set it out in layman's terms for you, cub; if you put any more screwed up ideas in my son's head, or if I _think_ you're putting any more screwed up ideas in his head, I will toss you back into the tunnels and send Knuckles with you. Nobody is going to stand in my way."

Tails stared at her. "You'd do that to your own son?"

"When you consider what I did to his father, isn't that something of a moot point?" Lara-Le said.

The pain from the fox's broken tail was almost blacking him out, but Tails fought grimly to retain consciousness; something inside him said that if he passed out, he'd never come round again.

"I'll help Knux. You take one _step_ towards him an' I'll save him an' take him away!"

Lara-Le laughed. "Take him today if you want! You think I care? But you'll have a job convincing him why you want him to leave his home and his mother so soon after he's been reunited with her. Almost as much of a job as you'll have convincing him that you're not just jealous of me and trying to come between a mother and her child."

Tails struck.

It wasn't a very hard or fast blow, and it only worked because it caught Lara-Le completely and utterly off guard. It was also well-aimed enough to hit one of the echidna's sensitive areas – Knuckles had finally given in and showed Tails where these were when the fox had first been staying on Angel Island – and Lara-Le snatched her hands away from his shoulders with an oath. Pushing past her, Tails bolted for the exit.

He'd got all of ten feet when Lara-Le caught him in a painful grip.

"Good joke, little cub," she said very softly. "But like all jokes, it wouldn't be as funny a second time. Do you understand me?"

Tails yelped as she grabbed his broken wrist and twisted it, grinding it.

"I said _do you understand_?"

Tails tried to speak and couldn't, so settled for nodding once.

"Good." Lara-Le twisted the wrist a little further. "See that you don't forget it. Of course, if you want to leave Angel Island – which you never should have been permitted to set foot on in the first place – you can go right ahead."

In an agony of desperation, Tails fastened his teeth into Lara-Le's arm, sinking them in until the echidna released him to backhand him viciously across the face, sending him flying to hit his head against the rock floor with an audible crack.

"If Knux knew you did that—" he began, rubbing his sore skull hard.

"Try telling him," Lara-Le said coolly. "He'd never believe you in a million years. But if you really like my son, Tails, and don't want both you and him to get sent down into those tunnels, you'd do well to keep that spiteful mouth of yours shut." Crossing the floor, she grabbed him – this time by his good arm – and hauled him up. "Now, here's what's going to happen. You and I are going to walk back to Knuckles and act like nothing's wrong. One word out of place from you and you'll both be gone, and if you think I wouldn't do it, think again. Alright?"

Tails nodded mutinously.

"Good." Lara-Le jerked her head towards the cave. "Let's go."

Tails half expected the echidna to throw him off a cliff on the journey back, but to his surprise, Lara-Le didn't lay a finger on him. He supposed rather bitterly that she didn't need to; she'd made her point and there was no real way Tails could refute it.

Knuckles was back at the hut when they returned, and Tails' heart leapt.

_You can expose her_, something inside him whispered. _Tell Knux what she did to you. Tell him what she threatened to do to him_.

Almost immediately another voice spoke up, one which sounded a lot like Knuckles. _Yeah? And you'll be proving that...how? Hallucinations are all you need for Knux to really believe you've gone round the twist._

"Where've you two been?" Knuckles said idly. Lara-Le smiled.

"Oh, me and your little friend here were just having a walk and a chat, getting to know each other." She turned the friendly smile on Tails. "Isn't that right, Tails?"

Tails swallowed. He couldn't let her send Knuckles to the tunnels to become a slave, he _couldn't_.

"Yeah," he said hoarsely. "Yeah, that's right."

**Okay, so that's another chapter done ;) Hope you liked it and if you read, please review!**


	9. Best Laid Plans

**Burn: Heh, thanks; glad you liked it :P**

**Kj: Driving a wedge between Tails and Knux...you'll find out in due time :P On the dream front...yep, she was ;) I get the feeling things like that happen whenever the Chaos Emeralds/Master Emerald is in real danger ;)**

**Shadow-spawn180: Lara-Le's identity...hmm, do I clear that up now or...NAH:P And that's what I love most about covering two or three separate storylines; I get to spin cliffhangers out two or three times as long ;) And yes, Tails has grown a lot...I guess supposed bereavement and torture can do that to a person. For the rest, keep reading :P**

**Matri90: (smiles) Thanks :)**

**Asher Tye: Thanks :D Tails going feral...actually, there's a fairly specific type of situation that sets him off ;) Maybe more on that later :P**

**Matt Lans: Yes, Lara-Le is indeed a bad guy ;) With the title being what it is, was there ever any doubt? (weg)**

**FriedBrickWall: Yeah...I think Knux probably would believe Tails ;) On the other hand, can you blame Tails for wanting to keep him safe:P**

**Toboe16: You're right...Tails has to find a way...somehow :P**

**Pyrokinetics: Yes, she certainly is...;)**

**Awdures: (grins) Thanks :D**

_My Memoirs by Me_

_Oh hell. That was one major screw up on my part; I really, honestly thought Bait was on our side. I haven't seen him since it happened, hardly surprising really._

_No. No, that's not fair; after all, I don't have any proof that Bait was the one who blew up the CDA. At least, no proof short of the little fact he practically confessed! Still...that's not quite enough, somehow. After all, Raker could have got to him while I was out with Amy and forced him to say that. I can't condemn Bait until I know the full story._

_But from where I stand, it's not looking good._

_--Sonic the Hedgehog_

Something that felt like a hand made of hot wind lifted Sonic and tossed him through the air as though he weighed next to nothing. Dazed, ears ringing from the blast, he staggered to his hands and knees and looked around wildly.

"Bait! Bait, where are you?"

No reply, but Sonic's keen nose picked up the scent of ozone usually associated with a transport beam and he stared around. Had Bait left? Blown up the CDA and then gone on the run? But _why_? He'd been happy with Sonic...hadn't he?

A scream reminded him of his current predicament and he whirled, racing towards the apartments.

He'd almost made it when the second explosion hit, blasting him through a sixth-storey window and into unconsciousness in a shower of blood and glass.

* * *

When he woke up, he was lying in a white bed with so many flowers and Get Well Soon cards around him that it was like being in a florist's shop. All the flowers were in full bloom – _that's good, it means Charmy must have survived_, Sonic thought randomly – and two red helium balloons floated above his bed.

"You're with us again?" someone said from among the foliage.

The hedgehog struggled to sit upright. "Mighty? What happened?"

The armadillo emerged, ducking under several fronds and came to stand in front of Sonic. "You got knocked out in that explosion."

"Tell me something I _don't_ know." Sonic reached behind his head. Nothing really bad, although there was a certain stiffness in his face that came with stitches.

"The doctors are saying there won't be any scars – you only suffered superficial cuts – but you'll have to have the stitches out soon." Mighty paused. "You've been out cold for two days."

"What!" Sonic shot to his feet, staggered and collapsed onto the bed again. "Two _days_? What about the explosion? What about the CDA?"

"They're still picking through the wreckage. It's on the twenty four hour Zonal News."

"Yeah?" Sonic peered up between a rosebush and a miniature cactus at the wall-mounted TV screen. "Where's the remote?"

"Uh..." Mighty frowned. "I think it's behind the azaleas."

"Yeah? Great. Now where are the azaleas?"

"Next to the tulips."

Sonic squinted. "The red ones or the white ones?"

"The white ones, behind the miniature hydrangea bush that's next to the blue roses."

"Who're all these from?" Sonic said weakly. "I mean, sure I love flowers, but jeez, Might; did I save some Mobian gardens and forget about it?"

Mighty shook his head, grinning now. "You forgot something alright; you're Sonic the hedgehog, Mobius' national hero and have been for the last five or six years. People love you. This is just a small selection of the flowers that were actually _sent_; the rest are being planted in the Sonic Memorial Gardens."

"The _what_?" Sonic's jaw dropped. "Dammit, I'm not dead yet!"

"It's not for you. It's for everyone else who's lost someone. Scrap Brain have always wanted to build one and now you've visited, they've cashed in on so much tourism and hospital donations that they can do it."

The hedgehog glanced away, rather sourly. "So they're just using my name as a way to cash in, huh?"

Mighty laughed. "They been doing that for years, ever since you first saved this Zone. Let's see...there's the Sonic Zonal Park, the Sonic Mall, the Sonic Cinema, the Sonic Theatre, the Sonic Stadium, the Sonic—"

"Enough already!" Sonic got to his feet. Dizziness whirled through his head and he almost fell, but managed to remain upright this time by grabbing a small palm tree.

"You didn't want the fame, Sonic, you should have thought of that before you went around saving the world."

Mighty's words sparked off something in Sonic and he fixed the armadillo with a steady look. "Where's Bait?"

"Nobody knows." Mighty moved the potted irises to one side and finally managed to get closer to Sonic. "I think...wherever he is, he's with Raker."

"Yeah? Well, good riddance to bad rubbish." Agony jolted Sonic's skull as he tried to move, making him add waspishly, "And to Raker as well."

Mighty stared hard at him. "That's _not_ fair, Sonic, and you know it."

The hedgehog dropped his gaze, embarrassed. "You're right, it's not. But how could he do something like that? He blew up the CDA!" He shook his head. "I think Bait's got a serious problem and that's not my being unfair, Might, that's the plain truth."

Mighty's stare intensified and he folded his arms. "Let me tell you something. Me and Bait had a little talk while you were out with Amy. You know what his biggest hope is?"

"To follow in his brother's footsteps and blow up an entire Zone?"

The slap knocked Sonic off his feet and almost across his bed.

"I'll pretend you never said that," Mighty informed him coolly. Sonic opened his mouth to retort that he wished the armadillo had decided to pretend this _before_ hitting him, then shut it again. Even he knew when he was pushing his luck.

"Yeah," he said instead. "I didn't mean it, Might, not really. What'd Bait say to you?"

"He said his biggest hope was for you to see him like you did Tails, as a little brother. With that in mind, Sonic, you really think he'd have blown up the CDA? You think he'd have done anything that might have even slightly upset you, much less pissed you off completely?"

Sonic hesitated. "Possibly." He sighed. "Well, if he's not innocent, then he's the best actor I've ever seen."

"Not only that, but he's telekinetic."

Sonic frowned. "Come again?"

"Those bombs were set off by a remote control, Sonic. If Bait didn't pull it out and press the button in front of you, he couldn't have set them off. And he couldn't have planted them because when he's not been with you he's been asleep or in the bath or shower, and when you went out with Amy and he woke up to find you gone, he came to me. He's innocent."

Sonic hesitated, caught between relief and worry that Mighty might be wrong.

"You're sure?" he said eventually.

"Positive. Bait had nothing to do with it."

Relief won and Sonic dropped onto the bed, muscles suddenly too weak to support him. "Thank the Emeralds for that. Were there any casualties?"

Mighty hesitated. "Sonic...maybe you shouldn't worry about that just yet—"

"_No_. Tell me, Might." Sonic closed his eyes. "Is Bait...you said he was with Raker but did he...?"

"No," Mighty assured him. "At least, we never found his body. Espio says it could have vaporised, but I'm not so sure."

"So Espio's alive as well?"

"Yeah. Me, Espio..."

Sonic gritted his teeth. "Mighty, do you think it would be _too_ much for you to concentrate on who _isn't _alive? The iguana—"

"Is fine, thanks to you."

"Dammit, do I have to list everyone in that building before you give me a straight answer? Crypticism isn't your style, Might; you should have got Espio to do it."

"He asked," Espio said coolly from the doorway, "but I refused. You might as well know sooner than later, Sonic..." He hesitated, then said, "It was Vector. He didn't make it."

Sonic's eyes snapped open and he stared at Espio. _Vector_? But Vector was...well, Sonic didn't know him like he did the others, but the croc had struck him as too tough to die.

"Vector's dead?" he said hoarsely.

Espio nodded once, slowly. "Yes. Vector went back to try and save one of the families in the apartment below ours. He was still there when the second lot of bombs went off." The chameleon paused. "He didn't stand a chance."

Sonic dropped his head into his hands. "Any other casualties, Espio?"

Espio shrugged. "Not in the CDA. There may well have been others in the apartments below us, but that's no concern of mine."

"Bait?"

"Missing, like Mighty told you. He might still be in the Zone though; I admit I've not looked for him. I saw his brother being teleported somewhere though."

"Where?"

"How should I know? Probably back home to Emerald Hill Zone if he's got any sense."

Sonic groaned. It was logical, he supposed, but if you thought of _Raker_ and then of _sense_ and tried to put the two together, it never seemed to work.

"So I have to find a way of...hang on." His head snapped up and focused on the TV screen. "Isn't that going out on radio as well?"

Mighty and Espio exchanged looks, then Espio said, "Well...yeah. Why?"

There was a blur as Sonic shot past him, accelerating fast, followed by the slam of the door.

"Maybe I should have lied," Espio said reflectively. "The medics did say they wanted to stop Sonic doing anything strenuous."

Mighty rolled his eyes. "Espie, the words _Sonic_ and _stop_ don't usually go together unless the word _Robotnik_ is tacked on the end."

"Hm."

The two of them stayed silent for a few minutes.

"Where's the radio?" Espio asked suddenly.

A hasty search finally turned up the radio in a large tub of pansies, and the chameleon switched it on, tuning it to the Zonal station halfway through the evening broadcast.

"In other news, our sources say that the last of the Oil Ocean Zone refugees finally found shelter in Bridge Zone and Frog Forest Zone. The arsonist responsible for Oil Ocean has yet to be—hey, get off!"

There was the sound of a scuffle, then Sonic's voice took over, going out throughout the whole of Mobius.

"Bait, this is Sonic. I'm not mad at you, alright? But this has gone on long enough. Either you come out from wherever you're hiding and meet me at the park in an hour, or I'll leave you behind. I'm not going to hurt you, kiddo; I just want to talk to you. If you're not in Scrap Brain Zone anymore, then I'll meet you in Seaside Hill Zone, okay?"

Inside the radio station, Sonic stepped away from the microphone and walked out of the building – moving too fast made his head hurt unbearably – and straight into a pack of reporters who had made a beeline for the station as soon as the hedgehog's voice had been heard.

"Sonic!" A camera bulb flashed from behind him. "Sonic, what do you have to say about the recent attacks by Dr Robotnik? Do you think that maybe you're losing your touch, to have Robotnik over your head and make no attempt to stop him?"

Sonic, who usually avoided the press like the plague – not least because he was constantly afraid they'd find out the truth about him and Robotnik – whirled, mind racing. "What did you say?"

"Robotnik's Egg Carrier was seen flying away from Scrap Brain Zone shortly after the explosions at the apartment complex, which houses the headquarters of the well-known private detective agency known as the Chaotix. Where were you, Sonic? Eyewitnesses report that you were seen out on a date with a young, attractive hedgehog not so long ago by the name of Amy Rose, who helped one of the refugee families from Oil Ocean to reach this sanctuary! Have you finally decided to retire from your heroic feats and settle down with a family?"

"Of course not!" Sonic answered, stung. "She's—" He broke off abruptly. He had been about to say _she's only twelve_, but he knew full well how _that_ would play on the news.

Another microphone was thrust at him from another direction. "Sonic, are you concerned that Robotnik is going to find and catch your girlfriend and use her to blackmail you into surrender?"

"She's not—" Sonic began, then broke off again. It was one thing to denounce Amy as his girlfriend when there was just the two of them, but he couldn't bring himself to do it on Zonal TV. Amy didn't deserve that level of humiliation.

"Not what?" The question came from three different reporters simultaneously and Sonic racked his brains.

"She's not exactly your damsel-in-distress type," he improvised. "Now, if you'll excuse me—"

"The whole Zone heard your announcement, Sonic! Who's Bait? Is he or she connected with the explosions up at the CDA?"

"Bait is my business, and no, he had nothing to do with the explosions. Excuse me." Sonic started to push past again, but more reporters barred his way.

"Sonic, can we get a quote for our readers?"

Sonic, who happened to dislike this particular reporter with a passion after a news article which had had him in bed with two swans and an aubergine, turned around and all over Mobius, editors scrabbled frantically for their bleeper machines in response to a quote from the hedgehog that caught them completely off guard.

* * *

"Raker!" For the first time in his life, Bait was glad to see his brother. "Raker, you gotta tell Sonic it wunt my fault! I dint plant that bomb! You _know_ I dint!"

Raker laughed. "Oh, come on. Where's the fun in _that_? If I did tell him, he might get some crazy idea in his head of coming to rescue you."

Hope quickened Bait's pulse. "He's alive?"

"Oh yes. Bruised and concussed, currently in hospital, but he's alive. He's not very happy with you either."

Bait winced. "Raker, honest, I'll never see or talk to him again if you dunt want me to, but you gotta tell him the truth 'bout me."

"He already knows the truth, Bait. He knows you're a pyromaniac who just likes blowing things up." Raker smiled. "Lugnor was listening in at the hospital. I think Sonic said something like, _good riddance to bad rubbish_."

"You're lyin'! Sonic'ud never say that, _never_! He'll come get me, Raker, 'less you lemme go now."

Raker snorted. "Really. So much for the whole _I'll never see or talk to him again_ deal. But you were right, Bait; you never will. You're too easily led, too impressionable. I'm going to be keeping you a long way away from Sonic for your own safety."

"You mean _yours_. When Sonic gets here—"

"How is he going to do that?" Raker asked easily, then shook his head. "Of course, how remiss of me. I seem to have been somewhat premature."

"Prob'ly wouldn't be the first time," Bait muttered, not quite under his breath.

"Since I'm so relieved you're unharmed and so pleased to have you back with me, I'll pretend I didn't hear that. As I was saying, Bait, you're on board the Egg Carrier Three."

"Three?"

"Yeah, Robotnik's a genius when it comes to construction, but most of his names tend to be variations on a theme. But this little flying fortress is well out of Sonic's reach."

Bait glanced up at the walls with a growing feeling of desperation. How long had he been here? Long enough for Sonic to start missing him? Twisting around, he tried to look at his watch, wanting to gain at least some idea of how much time had elapsed.

"What's that?" Raker said sharply.

Bait tried to pull his arm in, tried to shield the watch with his body, but there was no space for him to move and he watched helplessly as Raker seized his arm and yanked it through one of the bars. Pain shot through Bait's shoulder as the muscles were twisted in an unnatural position, but he barely noticed it as Raker unstrapped the watch and held it loosely between finger and thumb, just out of Bait's reach.

"Who'd you steal this from?"

"I dint steal it! I don't steal _nothin'_, not no more! Sonic give it me!" He had as well; after Bait had spent no fewer than two hours with his nose pressed against the shop window, Sonic had finally gone in and bought him the watch in an effort to get both of them back before dark.

Raker sneered. "Why would he waste good money on you, Bait?" He looked at the watch carelessly. "You don't really want something that tacky, do you?"

Bait winced. Sonic had said those exact same words when he'd finally managed to figure out what the jackal was eyeing up.

"It ain't tacky. It's _cool_."

"Tacky," Raker repeated, his voice a sneering drawl.

"_Cool_!"

"Tacky."

In this much, at least, Raker was right; the watch was lime green with a bubble-shaped cover over the hands (both of which were fluorescent blue arrows against a black background instead of simple bars) and had neon orange leopard spots on the wristband. It was Bait's pride and joy, however, not least because it was the only present he'd ever received.

"Give it back, Raker!"

"Hmm..." Raker pretended to consider for all of three seconds. "No."

Bait automatically tried to stand, smashed his head on the roof of the cage and winced. "Listen, you...you maggot-ridden, fleabitten idiot—"

Raker laughed, cutting him off. "Well, if you're going to talk to me like that, Bait, I'm not even going to pretend to listen to your pathetic whining."

"Give it _back_!"

Raker dangled the watch just out of Bait's reach. "Clearly Sonic never taught you any manners, Bait. I suppose I can't condemn him for that; I never had any success on that front either."

"Prob'ly 'cause you only got bad manners! Gimme my watch!"

"How about a please, Bait?"

"_Gimme_ it!" Bait tried to grab the watch but his grasping hand fell short. "_Please_," he added. "Please, Raker, promise you ain't gonna do nothin' to it."

Raker smiled slowly, maliciously. "Alright Bait. I promise. You want it, take it." He set the watch down within easy reach and Bait grabbed for it without thinking. Raker timed his blow to coincide with lethal accuracy and as the younger jackal's hand covered the watch, Raker stamped on it hard, grinding his heel on Bait's fingers, ignoring – or rather, enjoying – his brother's high-pitched yelps that verged on howls as his fingers broke with an audible crack.

"Sorry," Raker said, still smiling. "My foot slipped."

Even through the red mist of agony, Bait managed to whimper, "You _promised_." Not that that made any difference, he supposed; after all, Raker had never kept a promise to him that he could remember.

"You asked me to promise not to do nothing to it, and I agreed." Raker's smile broadened. "Stamping on it hardly qualifies as doing _nothing_ to it, wouldn't you agree?"

"You knew what I meant!"

"So what?" Raker shrugged. "If it's any consolation, Bait, you wouldn't have got this back anyway. I can't have people saying I let my little brother go around wearing things like this."

"Lemme back to Sonic an' you won't have to!"

"Ah, yes, Sonic. You know what?" Raker said idly, then frowned. "Hey, look at me when I'm talking to you." A vicious kick to the ribs made Bait wince, but he somehow managed to shift pain-dulled eyes to his brother. "Better. You know what, Bait? I think Sonic might be worried about you."

_He is_, Bait wanted to say but couldn't. Pain was screaming through his hand and up his arm to his shoulder. He was strangely tired and wished Raker would just leave him alone, leave him to sleep.

"So I've been thinking, maybe you should make contact with him."

Hope bloomed in Bait's heart. Even if Raker made him say things he didn't mean, Sonic would know the difference...wouldn't he?

"In fact," Raker continued idly, as though it was of no real consequence, "maybe you should send him a letter."

Bait nodded once, almost imperceptibly.

"Good. Except...oh, that hand of yours looks pretty bad, doesn't it, Bait?" Raker shook his head, smiling. "Dear me, however did that happen?"

Bait didn't answer.

"I asked you a question." Another kick, harder this time in the exact same spot. "What happened to your hand, Bait?"

"You did it." Bait's voice was hoarse, but Raker heard every word. "You know you did it."

Raker sighed. "Pity. I was so hoping Sonic might have cured you of lying at least." He kicked again, harder, and this time Bait felt something give. "Tell me again, what happened to your hand?"

Bait started to repeat that Raker had done it, then his survival instinct seized control of his mouth and instead he said, "I...fell."

"Better." The booted foot, which had started towards Bait's ribs again, withdrew. "So, with that in mind, I suppose I'd better write it for you."

Bait struggled to understand. "What...you mean, me tell you an' you write it?"

Raker chuckled, clicking his tongue pityingly. "Oh, I'm sorry, Bait. I was never much good at dictation. I've already written the letter."

"I wanna read it!" Previous experience prompted Bait to add, "please."

Raker shrugged. "Of course you can read it. Robotnik thinks that Sonic will come for you – myself, I think he's being needlessly optimistic; after all, you did kill one of Sonic's friends with that bomb you planted in the CDA—"

"I never planted no bombs!"

Another kick. "Don't interrupt me, Bait. As I was saying, if Sonic does come for you then you should at least know why he's going to be so angry." Clearing his throat, he pulled out a piece of paper and read it aloud. "'Guess I fooled you, didn't I, Sonic? This is what I think of your stupid present, and I just want you to know that stitching you up was even better than selling your pathetic little brother as a slave. Bait'." He tipped his head on one side. "I'll send the watch back with it, of course. It's obvious someone stamped on it."

"_You_ stamped on it."

"Oh, true, but Sonic won't know that, will he? I'll send it care of Seaside Hill Zone; someone there will find him when he arrives." Raker smiled. "People with negligible intelligence like you really ought to leave the thinking to those of us who know how to do it…although as it applies to you, _negligible intelligence_ is something of a tautology, isn't it?"

Bait glowered up. "I dunt think that's funny, Raker!"

"You would if you understood it." In fact, Raker himself didn't understand it; it had been Robotnik who had come up with that particular insult, directing it at Raker himself.

"I bet you don't understand it neither," Bait said defiantly.

"You might well win that one," Robotnik put in from the doorway. "And just why are you doing all this to your little brother, Raker, so soon after our little chat?"

Raker shrugged. "It's raining and I'm broke, so I decided not to go out."

The doctor hesitated. He had a nasty certainty that someone like Raker would be equally happy torturing Robotnik himself, and that made him very uneasy. With the exception of anyone who had dared defy him openly, Robotnik rarely indulged in torture, largely because he had more important things to do with his time.

Besides, he wasn't stupid; if he tortured _everyone_ who insulted him, chances were good he'd be dead long before he was even a quarter of the way through. Robotnik wasn't exactly old, but he was no teenager either.

"Sonic's gonna come," Bait said thickly around a swollen jaw. "He's gonna come and when he does he's gonna...gonna..." He racked his muggy brains for inspiration and remembered something Knuckles had once said. "He's gonna kick your tail up so far you'll be usin' it to wipe your nose. An' there ain't _nothin'_ you can do to stop him comin' neither!"

Raker lunged towards him but Robotnik caught hold of him and held him back.

"Stop him from coming?" Looking at Bait, he chuckled softly. "Oh, I'm counting on it."

Raker, who had whirled angrily at the touch of the doctor's hand, settled with a smirk. The two exchanged a knowing look as Bait hunched into a tighter ball, one certainty reverberating over and over again in his head.

He was going to die there. Slowly and horribly, if he knew anything about Raker. He was going to die.

And in trying to find him, Sonic was going to walk straight into his own death.

**Okay, that's it for Chapter 9! Hope you liked it and if you read, please review!**


	10. Smoke and Mirrors

**Teltonmentra: Thanks, glad you enjoyed it :)**

**Kj: Yep, Vector...all the other characters are a little too important to kill off :P Sonic's comment...I'll leave that to your imagination. As to updating quickly or slowly, I make no promises either way; my fics are updated when they're updated ;)**

**Toboe16: (grins evilly) Thanks...that's kind of the effect I was going for :P**

**Maverick87: (blushes) Wow...thanks :) I'm glad you like my stuff :D**

**Pyro Hedgehog4Ever: (grins again) Heh heh...thanks; I love it when I surprise people ;)**

**Shadow-spawn180: (blushes some more) Thanks :D Yep, Vector died...so far he's done absolutely nothing in most of my fics (with one exception) and so he was the logical choice ;) Raker...in a way I think Raker's more evil than Robotnik, since it's the Rakers of this world that nobody finds out about until it's too late. I don't think there's much of a backstory to Raker's behaviour; he's just completely and utterly sadistic ;)**

**Matt Lans: Heh, thanks :P Raker voodoo doll...ooh, now there's an interesting thought :D**

**Asher Tye: Yes...timeline-wise, this story takes place after _Caves_, which took place after _Secrets_, which took place either after or roughly alongside _Sonic Heroes_. Make sense? ;) And thanks, I'm glad you liked it (and very glad you like Bait as well :P) As to whether Sonic will be in time...who knows?**

**FriedBrickWall: Heh, I know you don't ;) Sonic and the letter...you'll have to keep reading to find out :P (_Raker: Oh, don't worry; I'm not going to kill Bait...yet. He's more fun when he's alive_.)**

_Guardian's Log no. 11489_

_Well, that went well. I got slapped by my mother, almost chewed by iksors and had to act as a fox transport, and all before dinner. Lara-Le didn't want me to save Tails – apparently guarding the Master Emerald is more important – but I insisted._

_Speaking of Tails, he's been pretty jumpy lately. I asked him what was wrong and he damn near yelped at me. I wonder if Lara-Le said something to upset him?_

_--Knuckles the Echidna_

_Dear Diary_

_I can't let Knux be sold as a slave, no way. I didn't know Lara-Le was gonna be so mean, and I didn't know she murdered Knux's father either. I gotta find a way to tell Knuckles about her and make him believe me before it's too late!_

_I wonder if Sonic would help me?_

_--Tails_

Tails looked around. He was back in Emerald Hill Zone, standing in the cove where the Tornado had crash-landed four and a half years ago. There was no sign of the plane, but Tails noticed a very familiar blue figure standing there looking out to sea, and he raced up to him.

"_Sonic_!"

The hedgehog turned and stared in disbelief. "Tails?"

"Sonic, oh boy, am I glad to see you! Everything's going wrong, Sonic, you gotta help me—"

"Forget it."

The shock of this was so great that Tails actually took a couple of steps back. "W-what?"

"I said forget it. You want my help, kid, you should have thought of that before you picked Knuckles over me. So go talk to your echidna friend. I'm sure he'll help you out." A cold smile appeared on the hedgehog's face. "After all, remember what you said back in Robotnik's fortress? I'm nothing, remember?"

Tails fell back a few more steps. "Sonic...I didn't mean that...c'mon Sonic, please, I need your help." He reached out with his good hand and took hold of the hedgehog's. "Please."

Sonic yanked his hand out of Tails' grasp and backhanded him viciously. "Piss off, you little freak."

Tails' ears flattened. He'd never thought Sonic would say _that_ to him, even in Robotnik's fortress he'd never imagined Sonic would cross that line.

He opened his mouth to protest, but something sliced into his back and he spun with a yelp to see Scarface standing there, closing in as he...

...woke up, gasping and shaking all over. Disorientated, Tails stared wildly around him, the tropical sun half blinding him. He was...where was he?

Memory came back and he closed his eyes, sagging with relief.

"Jus' a dream," he mumbled to himself. "'Sokay, it was jus' a dream." He'd got into the habit of comforting himself like this down in the mines, and it helped a little.

Knuckles had been in a bad mood all morning, mostly due to Tails' having shattered a bowl. There was no question of mistaken identity or 'maybe he did, maybe he didn't' this time; the echidna had actually seen the fox do it. Fair enough, it had been accidental – Tails had been trying to balance one thing too many – but that still didn't change the fact that it had happened.

For his part, Tails had spent the entire morning hiding on top of the hut again, not daring to draw the echidna's attention to him. He supposed he must have dozed off.

The sound of raised voices came from inside the hut, then the door opened and slammed as Knuckles strode out, clearly furious. Tails cringed; Knuckles and Lara-Le had been arguing a lot lately. Part of him didn't mind this – the more they argued, the more likely Knuckles was to throw her off Angel Island – but part of him dreaded it; whenever they fought, Knuckles' mood took a nosedive.

Half sliding down, Tails set off at a run. He didn't want to get in Knuckles' way, and he didn't want to be left alone with Lara-Le either.

Slowing down as he reached the outskirts of a forest, he dived between the trees and went to seek sanctuary in the Marble Garden Zone.

It took a good few hours before Knuckles thought to look for him, another two before he realised Tails wasn't in the Ice Cap Zone, and it was almost midnight before the echidna finally admitted defeat and returned home, intending to pick up the search again in the morning. Another vicious argument with Lara-Le – this time with Knuckles accusing her of cowardice, a killing insult in echidna society – had driven him out of the hut again and, for want of something better to do, he'd resumed his search.

It took another three hours before the echidna – who was gliding over the island at this point – spotted what looked like a small tan and white fluffy ball curled up under a tree in the Marble Garden Zone. Relief almost caused him to drop out the sky and he circled, coming in to land next to the fox.

"Tails! Tails, are you alright?"

No answer. Knuckles reached out and gave the fluffy ball an experimental nudge. "Tails?"

"I'm sleeping." The answer was muffled, but there. "Go 'way."

"I'm not going anywhere, kid. This is my island, in case you'd forgotten. What are you doing here?"

"Sleeping," the ball repeated.

"Tails, if you don't uncurl and talk to me this instant I'll push you down the hill! Why are you here?"

"'Cause you don't want me in the Ice Cap Zone 'cause it's too cold and you don't want me in your hut 'cause I break stuff." Tails poked his head halfway out. "Knux, I'm real tired. Wanna sleep."

"You can sleep back at the hut, kid." Damn, he should have thought of this before! Marble Garden was usually warm, almost tropical, but Angel Island happened to be drifting through the northernmost part of Mobius' hemisphere and the Zones – except for Lava Reef and Red Mountain – were inches deep in snow. So was Tails, now Knuckles noticed it.

The fox shook his head. "'M not gonna go back to the hut, Knux. Jus' gonna sleep right here..." His voice drifted off and he closed his eyes.

"You're not." Knuckles scooped Tails into his arms – something made difficult by the fact that Tails flatly refused to uncurl – and winced at the coldness of the fox's body. "Dammit, kid, how long have you been out here?"

A shrug. "Since you got mad at me for breaking the bowl."

"Tails, I know you, and I refuse to believe you'd run away just because I was a little short with you!"

Tails half shrugged. "Doesn't matter. Knux, I wanna stay here."

"If you stay here in these temperatures, Tails, you'll die."

"Don't care. It's private, an' there's no way _she_ c'n get up here without me knowing."

Knuckles, who had been about to jump onto a running transport, stopped dead and stared down at the small bundle in his arms.

"_That's_ what this is about? You've been hiding from Lara-Le?" He shook his head. "For the love of the Emeralds, Tails, _why_? I know she's a little...aloof, but she's just another echidna like me."

Twisting his head away, Tails mumbled something that sounded like, "Yeah, I know."

"Oh." Knuckles stepped onto the transport and started running on the spot, moving it up and along. "Oh, I _see_."

"'S not that I don't like you, Knux—"

"Right, you just use me for free bed and board, is that it?"

"_No_!" Tails uncurled unexpectedly and Knuckles almost fumbled him. "I'd never do that to _anyone_, Knux, least of all you! 'S jus'...stuff."

Knuckles stared at Tails, stared for a long time.

"Tails?" he said softly. "Tails, what happened to your face?"

Tails flattened his ears and half turned to bury the face in question in Knuckles' chest. "I dunno what you're talking about, Knux."

"Tails..." Now the voice held a definite warning.

"I don't!"

"Your jaw's so swollen it's practically doubled in size. You haven't done anything crazy like trying to snowboard or anything, have you?"

"N...yes! Yeah, that's it, Knux, I went snowboarding an' fell an' whacked my face on the ice! Pretty dumb, huh?"

Knuckles abruptly reversed direction, causing the transport to slow down drastically and finally stop and start sinking. Fixing the fox with a sharp look, he answered, "Yeah, that's dumb. Almost as dumb as thinking I'm going to buy some crackpot story like that one. Tails, what really happened?"

Tails flattened his ears. "I can't say, Knux."

The transport ricocheted off a currently frozen fountain and then off the opposite pillar, and it says something both for Knuckles' concern and his sense of balance that he hardly even noticed.

"Tails, what's going on?" he said at last. "Ever since we got back, you've been acting—" He broke off.

"Go ahead, Knux!" Tails all but shouted at the startled echidna. "Go ahead an' say it! I've been acting _crazy_!"

Knuckles half turned on the transporter, steering it away from a set of spikes on the ground. "Alright, I will! You _have_ been acting crazy, kid; first you spend hours in the freezing cold, risking hypothermia and the Emeralds know what else, then you almost kill yourself in the Buragu river with those iksors, and that's on top of your going feral and trying to rip people to pieces!"

"You got no idea, Knucklehead!" Tails yelled, the combined fear and hurt finally boiling over. "You think you know everything but you _don't_! You got no idea what went on down there!"

"How the hell can I have," Knuckles shot back angrily, "when you refuse to talk about it?"

"Some things _shouldn't_ be talked about, Knux!"

"Fine! But if that's really how you feel, then you can't turn around and accuse people of not knowing about them!"

Tails struggled uselessly. "Why didn't you jus' leave me? Lara-Le was right; you don't want me here, not really, so why didn't you jus' leave me down there?"

Knuckles stared at him. "What do you mean, Lara-Le was right? Has she been spreading lies about me?"

Tails kicked once, viciously, and managed to land a blow in Knuckles' groin. Swearing, the echidna dropped him, but somehow managed to keep a firm hold on his arm.

"That's exactly what I mean, Knucklehead," Tails choked; he'd landed on his broken tail and the pain was making him dizzy. "All you care about is you, you, you! You don't wanna know what she said or what she did, all you wanna know is whether or not she was rude about _you_!"

"Tails." Knuckles dropped to his knees next to the fox, a terrible possibility running through his mind. "Tails, did Lara-Le hit you?"

Tails pressed his lips together and looked away. "I'm not saying, Knuckles. You wanna hang onto your vision of her as the perfect mum an' wonderful echidna, you go ahead an' do that. I wanna leave Angel Island, Knux, before you throw me off."

"I'm not going to throw you off, kid, and neither of us is going anywhere until you tell me what the hell's going on."

"Oh sure! I tell you, you tell her an' she jus'...jus'..." Tails looked up at the echidna, blue eyes so full of anguish that Knuckles found he couldn't look away. "Knux...I don't wanna go back to that place, not _ever_, and I don't want you to end up there."

Knuckles shook his head. "Tails, have you lost your mind? What are you _talking_ about?"

Tails swallowed. "How'd your dad die?" he said suddenly.

Knuckles shot him a sharp look. "What makes you ask that?"

The fox shrugged. "Jus' curious. I mean, you were wrong 'bout your mum, so is it possible you're wrong about your dad too?"

"No it's not, and we're not talking about my father, Tails; we're talking about what _you_ were talking about. You're not going to go back to that place, and I'm sure as hell not going to end up as a slave there. Talk to me, Tails. _Trust_ me; I'm many things, but I've never been a backstabber."

Tails clammed up again. "C'n we go visit Hidden Palace?"

Swearing inwardly – he'd been so close! – Knuckles answered, "If that's what it'll take to get you talking, then yeah." At least the Hidden Palace Zone was warm; it was just beyond the Lava Reef Zone, close enough to get the heat without the danger.

Tails closed his eyes, half turning to snuggle into the warmth of the echidna's body. By the time they reached Hidden Palace, Tails was sound asleep, curled up into as much of a ball as his injuries would allow. With a sigh, Knuckles sat down on the top of the steps leading to the shrine, and waited.

It didn't take long. Tails whimpered, stirred and when this failed to make his current nightmare stop, started thrashing around instead. Catching hold of the fox's shoulder, Knuckles shook him hard.

"Tails! Wake up!"

Tails yelped, startled, and jerked awake. "I didn't mean to! I'll…I…" He broke off, looking around in confusion. "Where…"

"Better now?" Knuckles said, a little tersely. He didn't object to the kid lashing out and kicking and punching the surrounding air when he was having a particularly vivid nightmare, and he supposed he didn't really object to the kid using him as a mattress, but he did object to Tails putting the two together.

Tails blinked up at him, then went limp with relief. "Knuckles?"

"Yeah." Damn, why did the kid have to say his name every other sentence? Didn't Tails _know_ who he was by now?

Tails yawned widely, and half turned to rest his head on the echidna's chest.

"If you start thrashing again, you can damn well sleep on the floor!" Knuckles said acerbically.

"Nuh uh." Tails slid down, winding both arms around the echidna's waist. Knuckles, who came from a singularly undemonstrative race and culture, and who would have been considered impassive even by their standards, shifted away. Tails doing this when he was being carried or sleeping was…well, Knuckles didn't feel comfortable about it, but he didn't do anything to discourage the fox. Tails doing it when he was awake…no. No, that wasn't right.

"Tails?" Knuckles said, somewhat hoarsely. "Tails, why do you keep doing this?"

Tails blinked up at him. "Doing what, Knux?"

"This." Knuckles couldn't bring himself to say the words _hugging me_. "Just…this."

Tails frowned in perplexity, not about the question so much as the reason Knuckles was asking it.

"Well, 'cause I like you, Knux. You're cool."

Knuckles shifted his weight some more. "What does your liking me have to do with your treating me like a plush toy every chance you get?"

Tails blinked again. "That's what you do when you like someone, Knux, you hug them."

"Twenty four seven?"

"No, but when you like someone an' you're close by and they're feeling down or you're feeling down, or you just wanna, you give them a hug, you know that."

"I don't." Knuckles' voice was a little shorter than he'd intended. "I've never had anyone up here that I liked, certainly not enough to hug them."

Tails stared. "But…you musta had _someone_, Knux. What 'bout your family?" He paused. "What _about_ your family?" he asked, in a slightly different tone. "You never talk about them, Knux, not ever."

"Fine." Knuckles bit the word off at the end. He wasn't sure if this was a better subject than that of physical affection – and speaking of which, Tails still hadn't let go of him – but he was more than willing to take a chance. "What do you want to know?"

"Do you have a brother? Or a sister?"

"No. I used to want one when I was a puggle, but it never happened. Looking back on it, I think I'm glad. Next question."

Tails yawned. "Okay. Knuckles, who's Tikal?"

Knuckles froze in pure shock. "Where did you hear _that _name? The old echidna logs?"

Tails shook his head. "Uh uh. Well, yeah, I did but I had a dream about her a couple nights ago. She said that it really is your mum here, but that she's been lying to you."

"Yeah?" Feeling it couldn't hurt to humour the kid, Knuckles said, "And did, uh, Tikal say anything else?"

"She said something I shoulda figured out ages ago, Knux."

"Yeah? What?"

"Lara-Le didn't go ten years ago because she was taken prisoner by Robotnik, 'cause Robotnik didn't exist ten years ago. I dunno what happened but it wasn't Robotnik."

Knuckles took a deep breath. "Tails, no offence, but I'd say one of Robotnik's minions is more likely to have visions than you. If you figured all this out, then fine, but don't dress it up, okay?"

Tails sighed loudly. "She said you'd say that. She also told me to give you a message."

Knuckles raised a sceptical eye ridge. "Yeah? And what message would that be?"

Fixing the echidna with a determined look, Tails said, "_Ngin-ny stiatok bi-maleng_."

The sceptical look disappeared from Knuckles' face and he stared at Tails, for once utterly speechless. Tails' Sagayan was…well, his pronunciation and reading skills were both excellent, but as far as speaking it went, he still only knew about fifty words, and he could only string about two or three of them together at a push. This fluent communication in itself was enough to give Knuckles pause.

It was what Tails had said that really shook the echidna, however. Roughly translated, it meant, _This is a matter of honour_ and in echidna society, those six words carried almost as much weight as a Chaos Emerald. Knuckles had never taught or intended to teach Tails – or indeed anyone – about this particular custom, since it was open to abuse by non-echidnas; anything prefaced or concluded with this phrase was a) the complete truth and b) to receive the listener's full cooperation if that listener didn't want to besmirch his own honour.

He opened his mouth to ask Tails exactly what the hell was going on, but at that point someone shrieked, "_Sacrilege_!" from the Lava Reef entrance and he closed his mouth in surprise, his thoughts unspoken.

Lara-Le stood there, staring furiously from Knuckles to Tails and back to Knuckles again.

"How _dare_ you! You bring an outsider, a non-echidna to see the Master Emerald! You have violated _everything_ your duty stands for!"

Taking a deep breath, Knuckles closed his eyes and said tiredly, "Lara-Le, for the love of the Emeralds, _shut up_. Yes, I did bring Tails here. He's been here before and I trust him completely."

"You may only ever reveal the location of the shrine to other echidnas, Knuckles!"

"_Are_ there other echidnas?" Knuckles asked bluntly. Lara-Le hesitated, then the fight seemed to leave her; she slumped and leaned against a pillar.

"No. You were right about that, at least. You and I are the only ones left."

"Tails said he saw a puggle down in the mines."

"Tails said, Tails said. Who are you going to believe, Knuckles, some dumb fox brat or your own mother?"

Knuckles stared at her, then said icily, "I'll believe the dumb fox brat, if it's all the same to you."

Tails scowled at him. "Love you too, Knux."

There was a silence.

"I never should have left," Lara-Le said abruptly. "I thought you were mature enough to cope, but I was clearly mistaken."

"_Mature enough to cope_?" Knuckles all but shrieked at her. "I was six years old! How the _hell_ was I supposed to be able to cope with being left all alone on this island with nobody to talk to, nobody to even see day in and day out? I was a little kid, Lara-Le! What you did was beyond wrong and you _know_ it!"

"I think you're forgetting I was taken prisoner," Lara-Le said icily.

"I think _you're _forgetting that that's not what you said two minutes ago," Knuckles shot back. "I don't know where you got to, and I don't know why you really abandoned your family and your duty, but I know one thing; I wish to the Master Emerald that you'd never come back!"

"That," Lara-Le informed him in sub-arctic tones, "makes two of us."

Knuckles turned away. "Get out."

Judging from Lara-Le's expression, he might as well have pissed on the Master Emerald.

"_What_ did you say to me?"

The other echidna whirled. "You heard me! You come back after all these years and cause chaos everywhere you go, and I'm not having you upsetting or frightening Tails anymore!"

Lara-Le folded her arms. "Tails is a kid, Knuckles, and clearly a deeply disturbed and traumatised one at that. He doesn't know what he's saying or doing half the time; he's admitted as much to you himself." She took a deep breath. "Look...I was wandering Mobius for a while, and there are several psychiatric hospitals, or homes that are used to dealing with wild kids. Maybe Tails would be better off in one of them."

Tails flattened his ears. "Knux, I don't wanna go in a home!"

Lara-Le fixed him with a chilly smile. "Young ones rarely know what's good for them, Tails, or what's good for others either." This last was said with subtle overtones of menace that sent a chill down Tails' back, then the echidna turned to Knuckles. "They could pick him up tomorrow, or we could drop him off, no problem."

Knuckles stared at her, momentarily speechless, then abruptly brought one arm across in a savage backhand that knocked Lara-Le off her feet.

Across the room, Tails tried to curl tighter. He knew echidnas were a more physical race than others, but he still hated seeing Knuckles and Lara-Le fighting.

"You're not the guardian, Lara-Le. You never were, and you have no authority on Angel Island. You abandoned your family, abandoned your home and lost any honour you might still have had when you threatened an eight year old kid."

"Honour?" Lara-Le laughed aloud. "Do you really still believe in all that archaic crap?"

Looking her straight in the eye, Knuckles said quietly, "You were the one who taught me about it."

Lara-Le shook her head, clicking her tongue. "Knuckles, Knuckles, Knuckles. Of course I had to keep up appearances, for your father's sake. That doesn't mean I _believed_ in what I was saying. As for Tails, I know for a fact that your hoard will more than cover expenses."

"You've been to my hoard?" Knuckles said very quietly. Next to him, Tails sucked in his breath with a sharp hiss. Information about an echidna's hoard, including its amount and location, was the only secret echidnas kept from each other. Even Tails had never seen Knuckles' hoard, had no idea where it might be; when he'd asked, Knuckles' reaction had been so volatile that Tails had hastily withdrawn the question. It was normal for an echidna to wonder about another echidna's hoard (and back when the echidna population had been larger, most echidnas had taken a positive pleasure in hinting about the rarity of their treasures) but for an echidna to _visit_ another's hoard was roughly the equivalent of sleeping in that other's bed.

"A lot of that hoard happens to be mine," Lara-Le retorted rather caustically, "so of course I've been to it. You should really have moved it, Knuckles; that hidden room under the bridge in Sky Sanctuary is almost full by now."

Tails cringed in preparation for the explosion. It wasn't unknown for echidnas to share or combine hoards (offspring inherited from their parents or, if there were no offspring, the hoard of a dead echidna was considered free for the taking by whoever managed to find it) but you never, _never_ told _anyone_ – much less a non-echidna – where someone else's hoard was to be found.

Something struck him then, struck him hard and he straightened abruptly.

"I know what you're doing," he said to Lara-Le. Knuckles, who had been studying the pillars and wondering how much structural damage it would do to the Hidden Palace if he were to rip one loose from its moorings and hit Lara-Le with it, blinked over to the fox.

"What?"

Emboldened by Knuckles' support, Tails planted his good hand on one hip and, still addressing Lara-Le, said boldly, "You're trying to tempt me into going to that hoard and stealing from it so Knuckles'll get rid of me. Well, I got news for you; I don't want his old hoard. Knux found that stuff, so Knux can keep it fair and square. He doesn't steal _my_ treasures, so I'm not gonna steal his! And you can put _that_ in your punchbag an' hit it, _pretmeri_!"

"Tails!" Knuckles said, but the reproach was more automatic than genuine.

"She killed your father, Knux!" Carried away now, both by a desire to protect Knuckles and his own fear, Tails' voice ran on, towing the rest of him behind it like an old tin can. "You musta wondered how Locke fell down onto those spikes, when he must've known Angel Island as well as you do, 'specially the caves you all lived in! Well, he didn't fall! He was _pushed_!"

Lara-Le looked at Knuckles. "You see? Completely delusional."

"I wonder." Knuckles stared back at her, unconvinced. "The kid's many things, but he's not a liar or a gossip."

"I'm not saying he's a liar; I'm saying he's psychologically unbalanced. I mean, after everything he's been through, it must have affected him deeply, Knuckles. He's very young and you don't know the first thing about how to handle disturbed kids."

The temperature of the echidna's gaze dropped a full ten degrees. It was fundamentally logical – if anyone had a right to be pushed over the edge by pain and suffering, it was Tails – and he was intelligent enough to know that everything Tails had seen and been through in his short life would leave its mark, but he didn't believe for one moment that the kid was actually _disturbed_. Disturb_ing_, sure, particularly when he went around asking questions – Knuckles still grew cold all over when he thought of their discussion on the facts of life – and admittedly Tails' occasional lapses into feral behaviour worried the echidna deeply (not least because it was usually him who was on the receiving end) but not disturbed.

"I'm not nuts, Knux," Tails pleaded. "Honest. She told me herself what she did to Locke."

Knuckles swallowed once. "Tails, leave us alone, okay?"

Tails took a step back. "But Knux—"

"Go on." The echidna jerked his head towards the exit. "Nobody's going to put you in a home or have you committed, I promise you that much."

Tails opened his mouth, then shut it again and walked away, slowly. In his current condition he wanted to wait for Knuckles in the Sky Sanctuary Zone, not brave the Lava Reef, but he knew full well how Lara-Le would interpret _that_, and he was sure that she wasn't above stealing from Knuckles' hoard and blaming him.

Looking down at the lava swirling beneath him, he found he couldn't bring himself to go any further. He was tired, worried both about Lara-Le and being underground – with the exception of the red glow on the rock walls, this was too much like the mines for his liking – and at least it was _warm_ here. Lying down, he dozed off.

He didn't know how long he slept for, but when he woke up he could hear Knuckles and Lara-Le still arguing. Yawning, he got to his feet and padded back towards them, then froze as he heard Lara-Le say, "It wouldn't be permanent, Knuckles. Just…for a few months or so, and the hospital I have in mind specialises in treating ferals."

"Well…" Knuckles seemed reluctant. "Well, maybe it would be for the best."

An icy hand closed around Tails' heart. Knuckles had betrayed him, betrayed his trust! Worse, he'd broken a promise.

"You'd better be the one to do it, Knuckles. He trusts you and you seem able to handle him. You can get him to come along without any fuss, can't you?"

Knuckles took a deep breath, then expelled it in a sigh. "Yeah. Sure. Assuming he doesn't take off in that plane of his. Maybe I better go keep watch in Mushroom Hill Zone, just in case."

Tails flattened his ears. The Tornado! He'd forgotten all about that; Sonic had brought it when he'd come to get Knuckles to rescue him, only he'd left it, hadn't he? Yeah, he'd left it when Knuckles lowered the island to let him and Sonic off that way…

Sonic! The thought leapt into Tails' mind. Sonic would help him, surely?

The dream he'd had yesterday morning flicked through his mind and he hesitated. Sonic had no real reason to help him, not after the way he'd acted. Maybe he'd just behave like he had back in Robotnik's fortress.

Tails looked over his shoulder at Knuckles and Lara-Le and made his decision.

Back in Hidden Palace, Knuckles' face suddenly melted and dissolved into Robotnik's image, which glanced at the echidna and raised his eyebrows.

"Did he hear, Daimeri?"

Lara-Le crossed over to the exit and saw Tails racing away as fast as his legs would carry him, then turned back to the hologram.

"He heard," she reported, smirking.

**Okay, so that's chapter 10 done :D Hope you liked it and if you read, please review :P**


	11. To Renew Old Acquaintances

**Matri90: Thanks, glad you're enjoying it :D **

**Kj: Yep; Lara-Le and Daimeri are one and the same ;) More on that in later chapters though :P**

**Maverick87: (weg) Thanks; I was hoping to catch at least one person out with the Daimeri thing :D**

**Bam: Yep, Lara-Le's evil alright :P As for the rest...maybe, maybe not ;)**

**Riven K. Daniel: I'm sure she will ;) Shadow and Rouge...maybe in the sequel, I'm not sure yet...**

**Shadow-spawn180: And you were right :P As to the real Knuckles...you will find out about that, promise ;)**

**Asher Tye: Thanks :) And all shall be revealed in time :P**

**FriedBrickWall: (_Tails: Maybe I will..._) And yes, I think a PikoPiko would be just the thing for Raker (weg) (_Raker: What? The reviewer asked me a question! What am I supposed to do; make like I'm a deaf-mute?_) That would be nice, Raker, yes...As to the black thing, if you're talking about the void, then yes it is still there (closer than you may think) and will be back very, very soon (the sequel to _Sins_ deals almost completely with the void, what it is and where it came from ;))**

**Momi-Chan: (blushes) Thanks :D I do my best :)**

_My Memoirs by Me_

_Bait never showed up in the park. Either he didn't want to come or he couldn't._

_I don't mind admitting that I'm worried about that kid. No, scared stiff might be more accurate, but the hard part is that I'm not scared for him...at least, not much. I'm scared at the thought that I might well have to go back into Robotnik's prison to find him._

_I have a nasty suspicion that Raker knows where he is, but to get to Raker I'm going to have to get to someone who knows him at least fairly well. _

_--Sonic the Hedgehog_

Sonic paused for breath, something he rarely did, but then it was equally rare for him to run over two hundred miles at full speed without a rest.

Sleeping Egg Zone. He hadn't been here for years, and in the normal scheme of things still wouldn't have been, but something Raker had told him a while back had stuck in his memory. There was only one person who knew Raker – or rather, only one person who Sonic could get to who knew Raker – and apparently that person was here in Sleeping Egg Zone, in this very bakery.

Sonic took a long, deep breath, then stepped inside. As the bell above the door tinkled loudly, two identical civet cubs came forward and chorused, "Welcome to the bakery, can we..." Their voices tailed off as they caught sight of Sonic and they stared at him with awed expressions. Here was a living legend, right in their little bakery. Manners forgotten, they raced forward, then came to a confused stop in front of the hedgehog, not sure how to proceed.

Grinning, Sonic dropped to one knee and reached out to ruffle the fur between two identical pairs of ears. "Hey kids. I'm looking for the guy who owns this bakery. You know where I can find him?"

The twins nodded in perfect unison, then the male said, "We know something else too, Sonic!"

"Yeah!" The female looked around, then beckoned Sonic closer. "We know how you can escape Robotnik next time you're fighting him!"

Sonic, glad of the diversion, looked over his shoulder as though afraid they might be overheard, then lowered his tone to one of hushed anticipation. "Yeah? How?"

The twins exchanged looks, then the male cupped his hands over his mouth and whispered in Sonic's ear, "Hide somewhere he can't fit."

"Ohhh." Sonic nodded wisely, looking serious and for all the world like he'd just been let in on a huge secret. "Hide somewhere he can't fit. Of course; so simple when you think about it. Thanks; I'll try that next time Robotnik and I go head to head." He winked.

"Are you..." The male broke off, cleared his throat and tried again. "Are you _really_ Sonic the hedgehog?"

Sonic raised an eye ridge. "I was this morning. Lemme double-check." He looked around at himself, under his arm. "Let's see...blue fur...blades sticking out my back...a pair of way cool sneakers..." He glanced back at the twins. "Yep, I'm Sonic, and I really need to talk to whoever owns this place."

"Sonic?" The speaker's voice was tempered with a wariness that Sonic wasn't used to hearing, although he wasn't surprised to hear it from this guy. Straightening, smiling now, he turned to face him.

"Hello Caud," he said pleasantly. "It's been a long time."

"Nearly five years."

The twins looked at each other, then at Caud.

"_Da-ad_!" That was the male, accusingly. "You never told us you were friends with Sonic the hedgehog!"

Caud hesitated. The simple reason for this omission on his part had been because he and Sonic _hadn't_ been friends; when they'd met in Emerald Hill Zone, Caud had been the leader of the gang that bullied Tails almost continuously.

"We weren't the best of friends," he said, a little edgily. "More like...well..."

"Acquaintances," Sonic supplied diplomatically. "I was just passing through at the time; your dad wanted to make friends but I was too caught up fighting Robotnik."

Seeing the hedgehog apparently hadn't come to dig up the past, Caud relaxed. "Exactly. What can I get you?"

"Information, to begin with. Then maybe something to eat; I'm ravenous."

Caud hesitated again, then stepped back. "C'mon through." He took an iced pella tart off the rack and handed it to Sonic. "Here."

"Thanks." Sonic took it and bit into it as he followed the civet into the back room. "Oh. Oh man, thif if good. Thif if _really_ good." He swallowed. "I gotta get the recipe."

"Why?" Caud asked rhetorically. "So you can start competing with me?"

Sonic laughed. "Still thinking like a gang leader, aren't you? I'm not exactly baker material and to be honest, I wouldn't have said you were either."

Caud unbent a little. "Yeah…well, it's something of a family secret. My wife Marla was the one who came up with it."

"Yeah?" Interested now, Sonic raised an eye ridge. "Where is she?"

"Robotnik killed her when he attacked this Zone three years ago."

Sonic stared, jaw hanging open before he realised that his mouth was still full of half-masticated pella tart and shut it with an embarrassed snap, swallowing before saying, "Oh man, I'm sorry."

Caud looked away. "Yeah. You know, it's funny but at the time, I thought you'd let it happen deliberately as a kind of punishment for everything I did to Tails. Guess even someone as fast as you are can still be too late, huh?"

Sonic shook his head. "I didn't even know you were here until Raker told me. I thought you were still in Emerald Hill Zone."

Caud winced slightly. "Look, about everything that happened back there—"

"I don't want to talk about that, Caud."

"No, but I do. Whatever happened, whatever we said to Tails, we never laid a finger on him, not really."

Sonic snorted. "You call shoving him face first into the sand never laying a finger on him?"

Caud at least had the grace not to meet Sonic's eyes. "Well…almost never. We never deliberately hurt him."

Oddly enough, Sonic believed him. Even when he and Caud had been at loggerheads during the hedgehog's stay in Emerald Hill Zone, the civet had never struck him as sadistic, not in the same way Raker did.

"I didn't come to talk about Tails," he said again. "I want to talk to you about Raker."

"_Raker_?" Caud stared at Sonic, clearly astonished. "What's he to you?"

"He sold Tails as a slave, for starters. Apparently he's been doing quite a good trade with a slaver ring in Scrap Brain Zone."

"Oh man." Caud shook his head slowly. "That's something he got into off his own back, Sonic; when I was leader of that gang, we were strictly small-time."

"I know, and I got Tails out. He's safe and recovering with a friend of mine now, but Raker has someone else with him that I'm worried about."

"Who?"

"Bait." Sonic grimaced as he said the name; he'd never liked it, but about the only person who knew Bait's real name was most likely Raker, and chances were good he wasn't going to tell.

"Raker's little brother?"

"How many Baits do you know?" Sonic said rhetorically.

Caud exhaled slowly. "Right…then what do you want from me, Sonic? Because I haven't heard from Raker since Marla and I left Emerald Hill Zone."

Sonic shrugged. "Anything, I guess. Anything that could help me understand and deal with Raker. Bait almost never talks about his life before he met me."

Caud stared. "And just how did he meet you, Sonic?"

Sonic shrugged. "Padded after me and Knux after we left Emerald Hill Zone and offered to come and lead us to Tails."

"Knux?" Caud echoed. "Another of your little tagalongs, Sonic?"

A wicked gleam appeared in the hedgehog's eye. "Well…you could say that." _Just not to his face, that's all_. "Anyway, Bait led us to Tails – and Raker pretty much destroyed an entire Zone trying to get his brother back, literally – and then Raker kidnapped him." Sonic shook his head, frowning slightly. "I know Raker can't stand Bait, so why does he want him back so badly?"

"Because he can pound on him whenever he feels like it," Caud answered bluntly. "He was the same when I knew him as well, although he became more and more dangerous after his father was murdered."

"His father?" Sonic took another bite of the hitherto forgotten pella tart. "And Bait's father?"

"Well, there was always some debate on that point, Sonic, but for the sake of argument, yes. Didn't Bait even tell you this much?"

Sonic shook his head. "No, he only said his father died." He snorted. "I'm guessing there's no point my asking if Raker could have protected him."

"It was Raker who murdered him."

Sonic's jaw dropped. "_What_? But he'd only have been about eleven!"

"Eleven year olds can do impressive things, Sonic. You of all people should know that."

Sonic frowned. "Does Bait know? That it was Raker, I mean?"

"Oh yeah," Caud said with almost frightening composure. "Raker was pissed off about something and taking it all out on Bait when their father moved in to break it up. He wasn't such a bad guy, even on drugs." He shook his head. "Raker felt he'd been deeply insulted by his father and so he went through to the kitchen, picked up the biggest knife he could find and went back. He slashed his father's throat almost hard enough to decapitate him, then kept carving him up like a piece of meat. I understand they had to ID him on dental records in the end. Bait was still in the room when Raker did all this and the kid just...went inside himself. He curled up in a corner and just sat there, staring into space. His mother killed herself two days later. Nobody except possibly Raker knows the real reason why, and if Raker does know then he's not saying."

"Did Raker have anything to do with his mother's death?"

Caud shrugged. "If he did, it was at second hand. He was in the jail when it happened and since there were no witnesses to his father's murder, they let him go the next day."

"No witnesses? What about Bait?"

"The word of a three year old wouldn't hold much water with a court even if they'd been able to persuade him to testify. Bait didn't move from that spot or that position for three days – he was still spattered with his father's blood when Raker came back – and he only moved then because Raker threatened him with the same knife he used to kill their father. As far as I know, Bait didn't say a word for six months after the incident and I'd lay money that he only spoke at the end of that time because Raker kicked him into it."

"Why'd Raker kill him in the first place though?"

"His father insulted him. At least, that's how he saw it."

Sonic rubbed his forehead, feeling slightly dazed. He'd wanted information, but this was rapidly heading towards the heading of a little too much information.

"Didn't something happen? Something to set him off?"

"Nothing. He just flipped."

"People don't just flip. Were there any problems with the parents?"

Caud shook his head. "Not enough to turn him into a psycho. Besides, look at Bait. He had the same parents as Raker, a far more brutal and sadistic upbringing, but he's not going around killing people. Raker was born with a twisted nature."

"Twisted? It's a damn helix! Gang or no gang, how the _hell_ you could have invited someone like that to join you—"

Caud shook his head again, cutting him off. "I never did, Sonic, you have to believe me. Raker came to me. To be honest I was too scared to refuse; if he did that to his own father, what the hell would he do to me?"

"Did you know Bait at all?"

"I...saw him a couple of times, but that's all. We were a gang, Sonic; we didn't want little kids cramping our style."

Something in the way he said it caused Sonic's eyes to narrow slightly. "What do you mean, you saw him?"

Caud flinched as though Sonic had pinched him, then shook his head. "I won't say, Sonic."

Sonic stared. "He didn't...no, even Raker wouldn't..."

"Rape?" Caud suggested very quietly. "No; for all his sadistic tendencies, he's never done anything like that, or even anything that comes remotely close."

"Then what—"

"That's something Bait should tell you himself, if he wants you to know," Caud interrupted. Half relieved, half still curious, Sonic let the subject go.

"You think Raker'd ever kill him?" he asked.

"Who, Bait?" Caud considered, then shook his head. "Not deliberately. He might give him a kicking and get carried away – to be honest, I think that's how Bait's eventually going to die – but I don't think he considers Bait important enough or irritating enough to deserve murder, not anymore."

Sonic stared. "What do you mean, _not anymore_?"

Caud glanced away. "Raker turned up late one day, soaking wet and covered in scratches. He just looked at us and said 'Sorry I'm late, I've been giving my kid brother a bath'. He'd forgotten something in his place, so I went back to get it. When I got there I found Bait lying curled up on his side next to the bath, which was almost completely full. The kid was wet and shaking all over – I don't think he saw me, to be honest – and there were definite signs of a struggle, plus the fact he'd clearly vomited up a hell of a lot of water at some point."

Sonic frowned. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying I think Raker tried to drown him in the bathtub," Caud said bluntly. "Either Bait got the better of him or – more likely – Raker decided that it was just too much hassle, or something distracted him."

Sonic stared into space, sick to the heart.

"Jeez." He'd known Bait didn't like baths, but had simply chalked that up to a kid thing; Tails was much the same way. It had never occurred to him that there might have been a more sinister reason for the jackal's aversion. "But he doesn't mind swimming in rivers or lakes."

"No. That's probably because Raker never tried to drown him in rivers or lakes," Caud said, with what Sonic felt was exaggerated patience.

For a long moment Sonic stared into space, then abruptly he spun. "I've got to find him, Caud. If Raker's hurt him—"

"He will have done, and badly if I know anything about Raker," Caud said bluntly. "He's not too fond of runaways, especially ones like Bait."

Sonic opened his mouth for a caustic retort, but at that moment there was a scream from the main bakery and he raced out without a second thought to come face to face with a robot. Before even Sonic had a chance to react, it dropped a package at his feet, then turned and accelerated through the door.

"You scared it away." That was one of the twins, looking at Sonic with an awed expression.

"Robots don't get scared," the hedgehog said absently, frowning as he picked up the package. Ripping it open, Sonic tipped it up and Bait's broken watch fell into his hand.

For a long minute, Sonic just stared at it. He knew Bait loved that watch (_why_, Sonic had no idea) even refusing to take it off when he went to bed. What had happened?

Reaching in, he pulled out the piece of paper and read it, a frown rapidly deepening on his face as he took in the contents, then looked up into the sky.

_Oh Bait...what've you got yourself into this time, kiddo?_

Reading the note, it was obvious that whatever it was, the young jackal hadn't gone into it willingly. Sonic couldn't for the life of him think what Robotnik would want with Bait – if the doctor was even aware of the jackal's existence – which left only one possibility.

_Raker_, Sonic thought grimly, screwing up the note tightly in one hand.

"That low-down, underhanded jerkal!" He spat the words, not knowing if Raker was somehow watching but not caring either, just wanting to siphon off some of the sick fury inside him. "When I get my hands on you, Raker..." Sonic's imagination, usually obligingly vivid, let him down at this point; he literally couldn't think of anything terrible enough to do to the jackal, at least, nothing legal.

Sonic glanced in the direction the messenger bot had gone, then raced after it and attacked it until there was nothing left but shattered metal. The presence of robots told Sonic that Robotnik had at least had a hand in this, and _that_ meant he had to find a way of getting to the doctor's latest fortress.

He shook his head. Tails still had the Tornado in the Mushroom Hill Zone, which meant that whatever he decided to do, he had to find a way up to Angel Island, and fast.

---

Robotnik sat in his security room, surrounded on all sides by hundreds of CCTV screens. This was his favourite room in the whole of the Egg Carrier; the only place where he could see every part of what his genius had created. He liked to come here when he needed a place to unwind and to think.

So far, however, he hadn't managed to do either, and this was largely Raker's fault. As far as Robotnik was concerned, he had no interest in Bait whatsoever – not in hurting him or helping him – but he _did_ have rather a personal interest in the operation in that he knew Sonic wouldn't like the idea of Bait being dead when he arrived…and much as he hated to admit it, Robotnik didn't like the idea of Sonic not liking the idea of something.

It was because of this that he had made up his mind that if Sonic came for Bait, he would break all his own rules by allowing the hedgehog to take the young jackal and leave unmolested on the condition that he took Raker with him. Or killed him; Robotnik wasn't picky.

He had no doubt that Sonic _would_ come, despite Raker's sneering opinions to the contrary. If the hedgehog risked life and limb to rescue complete strangers, he was hardly likely to leave Bait behind, especially since he knew the jackal was innocent.

The hard part was going to be convincing Raker – who saw anything involving the word 'Bait' as interference and interference as a personal insult – to lay off. Frankly, short of roboticising or imprisoning him (both of which were admittedly holding a rapidly growing appeal) Robotnik had no idea how to go about accomplishing such a miracle, and he didn't much like the feeling.

With a sigh, he glanced up at the camera displaying Bait's prison. It actually wasn't in the jail – Raker had put him in the coldest room on the ship to add to his brother's sufferings – and Robotnik had to admit that this wasn't a bad idea. At the very least it would throw Sonic off the trail. Granted that when you were dealing with Sonic the longest you could hope to throw him off was about two seconds, but the principle was still sound.

He sighed again, seeing Raker move into the camera's image. He'd turned the sound off for that particular room; he had no desire to listen to Raker's immature taunting. Someone really would have to teach that jackal some restraint…

Down in the room, Raker circled Bait slowly, vulture-style.

"Not so big now, are you? Not now you don't have your precious hedgehog friend to guard you."

"I will." Bait's voice was hoarse – he hadn't had anything to drink for two days – but clear. "Sonic's gonna come. Sonic's gonna come an' if you don't lemme go, Raker—"

"_So_ not gonna happen. Get this through that thick retarded skull of yours, Bait; Sonic is not coming for you. Nobody is."

"Has he..." Bait swallowed in a dry throat. "Has he read the letter yet?"

"Of course," Raker said carelessly. "And Robotnik has had another good idea; he suggested we stop by Angel Island and tell Knuckles how you very kindly led us there."

"I never bin to Angel Island in my life!"

"No, but somehow I doubt that will matter very much." Raker chuckled. "The echidna race has never been famous for their ability to stop and think things through. No, all Knuckles is going to think is that you've sold us out. Even if Sonic does come, it'll already be too late; Knuckles will have finished you. Me and Robotnik will be out of his way, of course, but you'll be there, ready and waiting."

"An' in a cage." Bait's limbs felt like they were permanently cramped; he'd been forced to stay curled up in the same position ever since waking up in the cage in question.

"Oh, of course," Raker agreed. "We'll just say we decided to gift wrap you for him."

Bait winced. He was certain that his actions had caused Knuckles to feel, if not openly hostile, then at least unfriendly towards him. And yet...Knuckles hadn't actually been cruel to him. There had even been occasional moments when the echidna had helped him – uppermost in Bait's mind was the time when he'd eaten his first chilli dog and it had ignited his mouth; Knuckles had seemed to understand then, had at least helped him to hide his distaste from Sonic – although these had been few and far between.

Still, Bait thought that even Knuckles wouldn't let him be treated this way, not if he could do anything to stop it.

"What'd Sonic say when he got the letter?"

"Hmm." Raker pretended to consider, then smiled. "I suppose you do have a right to know. Robotnik managed to tap into the CCTV outside the shop where he got it."

He pulled out a remote (and the readiness of the gesture told Bait that Raker had been planning to do this all along) then pushed a button.

A projection of Sonic outside a small bakery appeared on one wall. As Bait watched, the messenger robot arrived, dropped off its package and then sped away. Reaching down, Sonic picked up the package, opened it. He frowned as he caught sight of the broken watch, then pulled out the note and his frown deepened until it was almost a scowl. Abruptly, he screwed it up one handed, his expression darker than Bait had ever seen it.

"That low-down, underhanded jerkal!" The words were slightly tinny, but they were clear enough. "When I get my hands on you—"

The image abruptly cut, leaving smooth metal walls in its place and Raker glanced down at Bait with a smile, clicking his tongue at the younger jackal's stricken expression.

"Poor little Bait. Sonic didn't seem to be very happy with you, did he? You should thank me; he'll never get to you all the time you're here."

"What else'd he say?" Bait said. Raker heard the beaten tone in his brother's voice, the tone of utter misery and defeat and revelled in it.

"You really want to have him insult you some more?" he drawled. "He's not very polite, your handler, is he?"

"No," Bait whispered, although it wasn't clear whether he was in agreement with Raker or denial of the situation.

"What did you say?" Raker prompted.

"I said no. He's not." Bait closed his eyes. Sonic had been his last realistic hope, and now the hedgehog wanted nothing more to do with him.

A kick, light for Raker but still hard enough to hurt, caused Bait to jerk convulsively and open his eyes. He was tired, in more pain than he'd ever been before, and just wanted to rest.

"You wanna hurt me, you're gonna have to get me out," he mumbled, pain and exhaustion slurring his words.

Raker appeared shocked. "Hurt you? Me? What on Mobius put that idea into your head, Bait?" A mocking gleam appeared in his eyes as he lifted what looked like a blowtorch from the side and lit it, turning the flame this way and that. "I just want to _play_."

Bait closed his eyes again and this time it took two separate kicks from Raker to make him open them again.

"Wanna _sleep_," he mumbled. "Leemelone."

"Oh, but that would be rude," Raker said, smiling now. "And trust me on this one, Bait; you really, really do not want to be rude to me."

"Whassitmatter? You're gon' kill me anyway."

"No I'm not," Raker answered candidly. "Not unless you really push your luck. But I _am_ going to teach you what it means to be part of a family."

Bait struggled uselessly against the cage. "Raker, please—"

"Shut up!" No longer smiling, Raker kicked hard at Bait's cracked rib and the younger jackal shut up obediently. Raker's sudden swings from friendliness to pure rage were one of the things Bait found the most terrifying about him.

"I'd get comfortable if I were you," Raker told him with heavy irony, smiling again as the flame from the torch lit his features from underneath. "This is probably going to take a very, very long time."

**Okay, 'nother chapter to add to the finished pile :P Hope you enjoyed it and if you read, please review!**


	12. Escape to the Surface

**Kj: (blushes) Thanks, glad you liked it (and were disturbed by it :P)**

**Awdures: Thanks :) I do my best**

**Maverick87: Thanks :D Bait getting personal revenge...tempting but at the minute it's not on the cards :P Sorry**

**Shadow-spawn180: (blushes again) Wow, thanks :D Creepy...yep, that's kinda what I was going for :P As for Raker's medical form (laughs hysterically) Oh boy...I can just see him writing something like that as well :P**

**FriedBrickWall: Cliffhangers...you'll have to wait and see :P It is harder to spin them out when stories merge, though this one seems to have been less about cliffhangers and more about the story itself ;)**

**Matri90: Thanks, glad you liked it :D As to the rest...I've no idea :P**

**Private somebody: Thanks :) Sonic's reunion with Caud came as something of an unplanned surprise to me (though I had a lot of fun writing it :P) As to Raker...no, he really isn't somebody you want to turn your back on ;)**

**Space Tails: (weg) Thanks :P Man, I love Raker (from a writing point of view) And Sonic will indeed get his hands on him...soon...**

_Guardian's Log no. 11490_

_I don't like this. I don't like this at all. The accusation Tails made towards Lara-Le...then again, she wasn't exactly honourable towards him either. The very thought of dumping Tails in some home or hospital makes me angry! After all we've been through together, Lara-Le expects me to just toss him aside like an empty pella shell? Not in a thousand years._

_I'm going to find Tails though. I'm going to find him and take him to Sonic or the CDA, not on a permanent basis of course, but just until Lara-Le and I come to an agreement._

_--Knuckles the Echidna_

_Dear Diary_

_Knuckles is going to put me in a home or a nuthouse; he said so himself. I'm not going. I have to beat him to Mushroom Hill Zone and get the Tornado!_

_I just hope I can find Sonic. And I hope he'll agree to help me._

_--Tails_

Knuckles emerged from the Ice Cap Zone, dusting ice crystals off his hands. He'd just spent the last four hours moving his hoard from Sky Sanctuary to a recently excavated cave at the bottom of the ice ramps. It was annoying, and a chore he could have done without, but he wasn't leaving it to Lara-Le's mercy any longer than he absolutely had to. He'd done it with a clear conscience as well; hoards were the only secret it was considered honourable to keep from other echidnas.

The echidna stretched, yawning. He'd also spent most of the time before moving his hoard guarding it. He didn't believe Tails would steal it (although he knew full well the fox would love to see it) but he didn't think Lara-Le was above stealing and framing Tails for it.

As though thinking of him had conjured him, a small amount of snow spattered the echidna on the head and he glanced up just in time to see two familiar tails whisk over the top of the small mountain.

"Hey Tails!" Clambering up, Knuckles came to sit next to the fox, who was panting rather alarmingly. "What are you doing way up here?"

Tails yelped, tried to scramble away, accidentally put his paw in a snowdrift and turned a full somersault before coming to land on his back.

Reaching down, Knuckles attempted to help Tails to his feet, but got a set of teeth buried in his hand for his efforts and jerked back, swearing. He wasn't the only one to suffer; Tails' mouth had inadvertently closed over one of Knuckles' spikes and the fox yelped again before sitting down and attempting to wash the blood out of his mouth with snow.

Still nursing his injured hand, Knuckles stared at Tails. "Damn, kid, what was _that_ for?" He shook his head. "You know, maybe Lara-Le's right. Maybe I should have you committed."

It was said purely for effect and nothing more, but to Tails it was all the confirmation he needed and he started to run again, only to fall headlong into the same snowdrift a second time.

Watching the fox's struggles to right himself, Knuckles folded his arms. "If all you're going to do is bite me, kid, you can get yourself out of that one."

After two or three minutes had passed, Tails' struggles becoming more and more frenzied with each one, finally Knuckles relented.

"Oh, al_right_. Come here."

Reaching down, he plunged one fist into the snow and felt around until he located Tails' one good namesake. Grabbing hold of it, he pulled the fox out and to safety, despite Tails' frantic scrabbling at the ground with his three good paws.

"Kid, what the hell's gotten into you?" Keeping a secure hold on Tails' tail – it was about the only place he could grab where Tails couldn't bite him – Knuckles stared hard at the fox. "What are you doing here, anyway?"

"Nothing!" Tails struggled uselessly for a few minutes. "Leggo!"

Knuckles studied him. "Only if you promise to a) not run off without talking to me first and b) tell me what the hell you think you're doing up here!"

Tails wriggled for a few more seconds before saying, "Okay, okay, I promise, now lemme go!"

Sighing, the echidna released him.

"Tails, don't even _think_ about it!" he ordered sharply, seeing the fox's gaze stray to the path and his muscles tense in readiness. "Now come here, sit down and tell me where the hell you thought you were going!"

"Nowhere!" Tails said quickly. "I was just exploring! Just thought I'd revisit the places me and Sonic went to!" He stressed Sonic's name ever so slightly, reminding the echidna that if Knuckles did have the fox committed, Sonic at least would have something to say about it. "Not going to Mushroom Hill Zone though! Nuh uh! No way, Knux. Not going anywhere _near_ Mushroom Hill Zone! So you c'n stop guarding me 'cause I'm not going there, no chance!"

Knuckles stared at him, wondering seriously for the first time if Tails' mind really had been knocked off kilter by his sufferings. "Tails, why should I care if you go to Mushroom Hill Zone or not? What's in Mushroom Hill, anyway?"

"Nothing! Well, nothing 'cept mushrooms an' I'm allergic to mushrooms! Yeah!"

Knuckles folded his arms. "Nice try." He knew for a fact that if it hadn't been for Sonic, Tails would probably have eaten the entire Zone all by himself. "What's _really_ in Mushroom Hill?"

"Nothing!" Tails said again. "Specially not the Tornado, Knux. Nuh uh. The Tornado's not in Mushroom Hill Zone an' that's why I'm not going to it!" Replaying this in his mind and seeing it didn't sound quite the way he'd planned it, Tails hastily added, "Not that I wanna go to the Tornado anyway, Knux. Nuh uh. Not me."

"Riiight..." Knuckles looked askance at the fox for a few minutes. "Well, I'm glad I found you, anyway."

Tails flattened his ears. "How come?"

"Partly because – although this possibility probably never occurred to you, Tails – I have been damn worried about you, and partly because I want to talk to you about something."

Tails edged away. "Yeah? What?"

"I have to sort some things out with Lara-Le, Tails, and until I do I think it would be better for you if you stayed on the surface of Mobius. Just for a while."

Tails' ears flattened even more. "You got somewhere in mind?"

"I do as it happens. A couple of somewheres." Knuckles stood up. "C'mon, let's go."

"No!" Panicked now, Tails shoved Knuckles away, an action that did nothing except knock the echidna slightly off balance.

It did have another unexpected outcome, though, in that the foot Knuckles moved back to save himself inadvertently came down on a patch of ice, and before the echidna had time to realise what had happened he was falling off the mountain.

Really frightened now at what he'd done – he hadn't intended to _hurt_ the echidna, just knock him down long enough to escape – Tails edged away, eyes huge and ears flat against his head. Suppose Knuckles was dead? Suppose he'd killed him? Even Sonic wouldn't help him if he'd turned into a murderer.

Turning, Tails raced away, heart hammering in his ribs. How had it ever come to this?

A few minutes later, a familiar red figure, now somewhat battered, clambered over the edge a second time and lay there on his back, breathing hoarsely.

At this point, Knuckles was in an advanced state of what was technically known among Mobius' more learned citizens as _royal pissed-offness_. He was also seriously starting to wonder if Lara-Le might not be right about Tails; Knuckles was sure Tails had nothing against him personally, or at least, certainly not enough for him to throw the echidna off a mountain.

Knuckles sighed. He had to hand it to Sonic; this foster parenting thing was much harder than it looked.

Then he got to his feet and headed after Tails.

It didn't take him long to catch up. The fox had run a little too fast and caught his ankle in a crevice, twisting it badly and now could only limp along. Admittedly he was limping pretty fast, Knuckles allowed, but nowhere near fast enough to outdistance a fully healthy echidna. Especially when that echidna could glide over all the little pitfalls as Knuckles was now doing.

"You know, for someone who's so determined not to go to Mushroom Hill Zone, you sure seem to be heading that way," he called as soon as he drew level with the top of Tails' head. Tails jerked as though he'd been stung and tried to pick up the pace but failed and only succeeded in tripping over a tree root and going flat on his face.

Knuckles glided in to land next to Tails and hauled him upright.

"Are you going to be sensible now?" he demanded. "Because I'm getting damn tired of chasing you all over Angel Island! I know full well you're heading for Mushroom Hill, so would it be asking too much for you to tell me why you're going there and why you're so determined for me not to follow you?"

"Let me go! An' I'm not going _anywhere_, Knuckles, 'specially not to Mushroom Hill Zone!"

"Too right you're not," Knuckles said coolly, "since I'm not letting you go until I get a full explanation."

"Well..." Tails scuffed a toe on the ground.

"I don't think the answer's in your sneakers, kid," Knuckles informed him acerbically after three full minutes had gone by. When no answer was forthcoming, he sighed. "C'mon Tails, talk to me. Usually I can't shut you up for more than about four seconds at a time, so why am I getting the silent treatment now?"

"Jus' are," Tails mumbled.

"Yeah, I can _see_ I 'just are'!" Knuckles retorted, with far more emphasis than grammar. "What I want to know is _why_, and neither of us are moving from this spot until you tell me."

"Well..." Tails started again, then stopped.

"Yeah?"

"Well...I'm definitely _not_ going to the Tornado. In fact, I dunno where it is!"

Knuckles closed his eyes. _Master Emerald, give me strength!_ Without opening them, he said, "Last I checked it was in the passage underneath the first counterweight."

Tails glared at him. "You think I'm such a dumb pilot that I'd park it _there_? No way, Knucklehead! It's on the cliff above the wind switch!"

Opening his eyes again, Knuckles fixed Tails with a look. "Oh, so you _do_ know where it is."

"Nuh uh! I...it just..." Tails floundered. "Uh. It was a lucky guess."

Knuckles took a long, deep breath. "Tails...do you want to take the Tornado and leave Angel Island?"

"NO!" Tails yelped, then seemed to realise he'd spoken too quickly and too loudly. "I mean...uh...no."

"If you want to leave, kid, you can. I'm not holding you prisoner. But I don't think it's asking too much to know why."

"Because you're gonna put me in a home for wild kids an' I'm not gonna go!" Tails said, voice rising as he struggled to pull out of Knuckles' hold.

"I'm not gonna put you in a home, kid."

"A nuthouse, then! Knux, let go! _Please_!" Tails was sobbing now, something which alarmed the echidna. Tails almost never cried.

"Tails, I'm not going to put you in a home or a nuthouse, as you put it. Now calm _down_."

Instead, Tails twisted away from him, trying everything in his power to escape before finally running out of energy and lying quiescent and trembling in Knuckles' hold.

"What the _hell_," Knuckles said slowly, separating each word clearly and distinctly from its fellows, "is going on?"

"Knuckles." Tails' voice was hoarse, broken even. He wanted more than anything to turn and bury his head in Knuckles' chest, to have the echidna stroke his fur or at least tell him it was going to be alright – Tails knew Knuckles well enough by now to know he wasn't the stroking, soothing type – but if he did that he'd never escape. That was tantamount to surrender, and he couldn't; he had to be strong.

Tails coughed, tried again. "Knuckles...just let me go. _Please_."

He braced himself for the refusal, steeled himself to fight, _really_ fight, but instead Knuckles just said quietly, "Okay, kid. Okay." Releasing him, the echidna stepped back, and Tails gathered all his strength and bolted.

Knuckles stood there and didn't move until he heard the sound of the Tornado's engines, saw the plane flying away from the island. Tails' accusation of Lara-Le back in Hidden Palace Zone had set wheels turning and the more he thought about it, the more it made a twisted kind of sense.

What had happened to his father? For over ten years Knuckles had done his best to forget, now he tried to remember. Why hadn't Locke glided to safety, or climbed?

There was only one person who could answer that, and that was Lara-Le herself. Groaning inwardly – a confrontation with his mother wasn't what Knuckles wanted, not on top of Tails' odd behaviour – he set off for a transporter to the Hidden Palace, wondering how the hell he was going to broach the top with her. At the moment, the one that was most likely to yield a result was if he tried to trap her into a confession. Echidnas weren't known for subtlety or duplicity, and male echidnas were more blunt than females. It was unlikely that Lara-Le would suspect anything other than open honesty.

Knuckles sighed. He hated having to play it this way, but as a conversation opener, "Hey mum, did you kill dad?" wasn't going to yield any results except possibly a smack upside the head.

Arriving at Hidden Palace, he found Lara-Le standing in front of the Master Emerald in a guard's stance that was so exaggerated it was almost funny.

"You're back then," she said coolly, in Sagayan.

"Yeah, I'm back," Knuckles answered in the same language, "and I want to talk to you."

Lara-Le stretched. "Go ahead."

"Did you tell Tails about how things were? Back when we were a family?"

Lara-Le blinked, then apparently decided that the question was harmless enough. "No, never. I don't gossip about Sagayan matters with outsiders, Knuckles."

Half turning away as though the answer was of no real consequence to him, Knuckles said quietly, "Then how did Tails find out about my father?"

Lara-Le shrugged. "You must have told him and forgotten about it."

"I don't forget," Knuckles answered, "and I was never able to bring myself to talk about it, until now. I don't even like thinking about it."

Another shrug. "Then why do so now, Knuckles? The past belongs in the past."

Knuckles took a deep breath and threw caution to the winds. "How did Locke die?"

Lara-Le met her son's stare calmly, almost mockingly. "He had an accident and fell."

"Accident-accident, or accident-deliberate?"

His mother's eyes widened. "Are you seriously accusing me of murdering your father?"

"Should I be?"

Lara-Le was silent for a few minutes, then she said abruptly, "It's that fox brat put this in your head, isn't it? When I get hold of him I'll..."

"Kill him?" Knuckles suggested very quietly. His mind was whirling frantically. No, Tails couldn't be right about Locke's death! He just _couldn't_!

Could he?

"I'll do the Guardian's duty, since you seem to have neglected it all these years. Any outsider who sets foot onto our sacred lands or who lays eyes on the Master Emerald _must_ die. You _know_ that. The Master Emerald's never mattered to you, anyone could see that, but I won't break the trust that our ancestors placed in us."

An idea struck Knuckles, one he wished he'd thought of when Tails had still been there. Grabbing hold of his mother's wrist, he seized the red Chaos Emerald in his other hand, yanking it out of its place around the Master Emerald.

"What are you _doing_?" Lara-Le demanded, fighting to pull out of her son's hold. That, more than anything, made up Knuckles' mind; his mother knew the Emeralds as well as he did and so knew full well what he was doing. The Emerald Knuckles held was the one representing truth; when used, if anyone lied or even concealed part of the truth, light would flare from inside.

Knuckles ignored his mother's protests and struggles. He could always apologise for the insult later, if it turned out he was wrong about her. Reaching out, he pressed the face of the Emerald against her cheek.

"Did you kill my father or have anything at all to do with his death?" he demanded. _Please, please, don't let it be true._

Lara-Le thrashed around for a few minutes, then suddenly seemed to realise that Knuckles would not take silence for an answer; she stopped moving, relaxed in his hold and smiled at him almost serenely.

"What if I did?"

Knuckles' hands dropped off her shoulders seemingly of their own accord and he backed off slowly, shaking his head.

"No. You're not..." He stared at her, saw the truth in her eyes and had to grab onto the wall for support. "For the love of the Emeralds, _why_?"

"_That's_ why. Your weak fool of a father couldn't see the true potential of the Chaos Emeralds. Our race could have thrived, could have prospered! We could have ruled Mobius! But no, Locke had to guard them around the clock. When he found out what I wanted, he wouldn't even let me near them. Me! His own partner! I couldn't have him talking to you when you got old enough to understand, so I took...steps. After that I decided to start setting things in motion down on the surface."

"Are you _really_ Lara-Le?" Knuckles said suddenly.

"Yes. It took me two years to set up my 'death', but it was worth it." Lara-Le shook her head. "You've forgotten your own history. The Sagayan race had technology far in advance of the surface dwellers; I built a model, put it in place and left." She shrugged, clearly unrepentant. "As I said, it was worth it."

There was a long, long silence.

"Daimeri." Suddenly Knuckles understood, wondered how the hell he could have been stupid enough to miss it all this time. "Daimeri. Dead female."

Lara-Le smiled at him. "Yes. I did consider _daigun-tja_, dead mother, but I thought you might twig. To be honest, I thought you'd twig _daimeri_ long before now. Robotnik agreed there was a certain ironic justice to the name. He and I are very good friends, Knuckles; how do you think he found out about the Master Emerald in the first place?"

"If you think Robotnik'll let you live much longer—" Knuckles began hoarsely.

"Oh, but he will. You see, he knows I'm not interested in ruling Mobius, so there's no chance I'm going to usurp him." Lara-Le shrugged. "I help him out, he lets me live on his Egg Carrier. It's a good arrangement, Knuckles."

Knuckles shook his head, fighting to clear it. He'd never suspected anything like this. He was prepared to believe Lara-Le had driven Tails off – even as a puggle, Knuckles had had no illusions about his mother's feeling of superiority to non-echidnas – but this...no.

Questions raced through his mind, chasing each other in circles, and Knuckles asked the first one he managed to pin down. "Are there other echidnas? Did Tails really see a puggle down in the mines?"

"You'll have to ask him that yourself, Knuckles. But...yes, there is a puggle down in the mines. There were two but one died."

"How do you know?"

Lara-Le waved a hand impatiently. "I know because I put them there. I inseminated myself five years ago – don't ask me how—"

"I wasn't going to!" Knuckles said fervently.

"—although I hadn't planned on twins," Lara-Le admitted. "Still, no matter. The male died three weeks in, but as far as I know the female is still alive."

"Tails said it was a male." Knuckles forced the words out through numb lips. Bad enough to think of an echidna down there, but _family_...

"And how would Tails know?" Lara-Le said coolly. "I imagine he didn't stop to ask."

Knuckles had to admit she had a point there; male and female puggles looked almost identical until they started to develop. It was more than possible that Tails had simply made a mistake.

"But then...that means the puggle down there...she's my...my..."

"Sis-ter," Lara-Le said slowly and condescendingly, "yes, that's _right_, Knuckles. She'll do for my purposes."

"If you think for one _minute_ I'm going to let you do whatever you're plotting—"

"Oh, you will, Knuckles, you will." Lara-Le smiled very much in the manner of someone about to play their ace. "Because if you don't, I'll see Tails back in the mines and not only that, I'll fix things so he thinks it was you who put him there."

An answering smile appeared on Knuckles' face. "You'll have to find him first." He shrugged. "For the last time, Lara-Le, he's my friend, not my pet or my slave. I found him heading for Mushroom Hill Zone. When I asked him where he was going, he said he wanted to leave Angel Island, so I let him. He's probably on Mobius and chattering away to Sonic even now." The smile abruptly disappeared off his face as he added, "And I may still trust you now but if I find out for certain that you had _anything_ to do with this, I swear by the Master Emerald that you will never leave this island alive!"

"If Tails said anything, he was lying," Lara-Le said flatly, mind racing. Her ace had just been trumped, and trumped in style.

"I trust him implicitly," Knuckles answered, biting off the words at the end.

"Like I said before, Knuckles," Lara-Le said, smiling again, "as the Guardian of the Master Emerald, it's best if you don't take anyone on blind faith." Pulling out a dagger, she hurled it at Knuckles, burying it up to the hilt in his shoulder. Leaning in close, she whispered into his ear, "_Especially not me_."

**Well, might as well leave it here ;) Hope you enjoyed it and if you read, please review!**


	13. Crossroads

**Kj: Thanks (laughs) You never give up, do you? You should know by now I never give any of the story away in advance ;)**

**Private somebody: (nods sadly) I am indeed evil. My evility encompasses the realm of the Hanger Cliffs, with my borders occasionally crossing into the Land of Tortured Characters :P **

**Awdures: Thanks :D Not for much longer I hope (weg)**

**Ba: Heh...you did? Really:P Good call!**

**Shadow-spawn180: Thanks; glad you're enjoying it! Cliffhanger? Me? (innocent look) Nonono, I just finished work at that time and so had to stop to go home and...and...okay, yeah, it's a cliffhanger :P**

**FriedBrickWall: Tempting as it is to have Tails and Sonic miss each other...hmm...actually, that is VERY tempting, maybe I'll do it after all :P**

**Matt Lans: (c/o Metal Sonic) (laughs hysterically) Oh man, thanks! That review was just what I needed to psych myself up for a long day at work:D (_Knuckles: You might extinguish Raker and Lara-Le at some point so we can get on with the story_) Yes, Knux, in a minute**

**Maverick87: Oh, I sleep _wonderfully_ knowing that people are on the edge of their seats eagerly awaiting more :P Mostly because (sometimes) I know what's coming next ;)**

**Asher Tye: Well...hmm, maybe yes, maybe no ;)**

**Riven: Thanks, glad you liked it :P**

**Draxidean Icefire T.: Ah, what indeed? ;) (_Knuckles: Yeah, that's what I'd like to know!_) Hmm...you make a good point; I hadn't considered Bait's speech to be hard for non-English speakers to understand (hangs head in shame) Puggle is the word for a baby echidna (yes, it really is :P I looked it up online and it was too cute not to use)**

_My Memoirs by Me_

_Bait's in trouble. Big trouble. I know that note was supposedly sent by him, but I also know he never wrote it. It can't be Robotnik – though the presence of that messenger bot means that he at least had something to do with it – so it's gotta be Raker._

_I have to get up to the Egg Carrier, and that means I have to find a way up to Angel Island!_

_--Sonic the Hedgehog_

_Dear Diary_

_Knuckles let me go. I didn't expect that; I thought he was gonna drag me kicking and yelping into one of those homes. Maybe he's not as mean as I thought._

_I don't know what to do. I want to go back and help him out – cause I know he'll need it against Lara-Le – but what if he tries to have me committed again?_

_I'm in Seaside Hill Zone; it's the first place I was able to land safely. I wish I could get a message to Sonic._

_--Tails_

Tails looked around. He'd never been to Seaside Hill Zone before, and he liked it. There were no bots, nothing to worry about and the tropical sun felt wonderful. It would have been perfect if he hadn't been so hungry.

The Tornado had had a somewhat shaky landing – Tails had been so desperate to escape that he'd forgotten he only had one hand to fly with – and was currently hidden on the top of a mesa. Tails had no idea how he was going to get back up to it, but he supposed that it didn't really matter.

He sighed. He'd been on the bridge linking the mesa in question to a larger island – Seaside Hill Zone seemed to be all islands, from what he could make out – for four hours now. He'd spent at least eight on it yesterday, just staring out over the azure waters. Something about the scene made him feel calm, at peace with himself.

There was a surge of power and two sleek, black and white shapes erupted from the water on either side, leaping cleanly over the bridge to cross in midair and crash down again on opposite sides, soaking the fox to the skin.

Tails stared, awed. He'd never seen such creatures, had no idea that such power and grace could exist in a single animal.

"Tails?"

The fox yipped and spun so fast he almost fell, coming face to face with a familiar blue figure.

It wasn't too surprising, now that Tails thought about it. Sonic was, after all, a drifter, and if you stayed in one Zone long enough it was practically guaranteed he'd turn up. Suddenly he wondered if that was why he'd spent so many hours on this bridge.

Sonic's face split into a broad grin. "It _is_ you! I wasn't sure if it was. Finally decided to come down off Angel Island and mingle with the commoners, huh?"

Tails stared at him wordlessly for a few minutes, then something inside him shattered and he hurled himself at the hedgehog, clinging to him tightly and burying his face in Sonic's chest, quivering all over.

"Hey, hey, hey." Momentarily knocked off balance by Tails' unexpected reaction, Sonic staggered back a couple of paces. "What's all this about? Where's Knux?"

"He..." Tails looked away. "He...he couldn't come." Loyalty flared up in him at this point and he added, "He's had lots of stuff going on, Sonic. Lots of stuff. Yeah."

"And...what? He sent you down here to get you outta his quills?" Sonic said lightly, then caught sight of Tails' downcast expression and realised that this might well have been what had happened. "Damn. I'll kill that two-faced echidna when I get my hands on him!"

Tails' head snapped up. "Don't _ever_ tell him I told you, Sonic! Not _ever_! Promise me! And don't ever tell him you've seen me or that I'm here or...or anything! Promise!"

Sonic quirked an eye ridge. "You don't mean to tell me you're afraid of ol' Knucklehead." The echidna had his faults, but Sonic found it impossible to believe that he'd ever hurt or threaten a little kid like Tails.

"No," Tails mumbled, "not Knux."

Something in the way he said it got through to Sonic; the hedgehog paused and said, "Alright then; who?"

"Sonic..." Tails opened his mouth, started to tell the hedgehog about what had happened, then lost his nerve and settled for saying, "What were those things?" He pointed and Sonic looked to where another of the creatures was leaping next to the bridge, this time high enough to turn a complete somersault before plunging back into the ocean. His grin widened.

"Orcas, little buddy. Don't tell me you've never heard of them."

Tails shook his head. "Uh uh. They don't have 'em back on Angel Island. I didn't know you could get fish that big."

Sonic winced and glanced over his shoulder. "Don't call them fish, Tails. Ever. Last time I made that mistake one of them chased me across three separate bridges in an attempt to eat me."

Tails frowned. "How could it eat you if you were on the bridge?"

"It was eating the bridge too." Sonic rubbed his stomach. "And all this talk of eating's making me hungry. What do you say we go get a couple of chilli dogs, huh?"

"Each?" Tails said hopefully. Sonic laughed aloud.

"Sure, why not?"

"Sonic..." Tails hesitated, then abruptly flung both arms around the hedgehog's neck hard enough to knock them both flying. "Sonic, I'm really sorry 'bout what happened! 'Bout everything I said."

"Hey." Sonic hugged the fox. "Forget about it, lil bro. It doesn't matter."

"Where's Bait?"

Sonic tensed. Seeing Tails again had momentarily driven the jackal from his mind. "Gone. Someone – I guess it was Robotnik – caught him and teleported him up. I was hoping to get to Angel Island, use it to follow him."

Tails shook his head. "You don't wanna go to Angel Island, Sonic. You really don't wanna go to Angel Island."

"Oh really?" Getting to his feet, Sonic scooped the fox up into his arms, settling him on one hip as Tails locked both legs firmly around his waist. "Why not?"

"Knuckles doesn't want me anymore, so he's not gonna want you there. You better just forget it."

"Tails, I can't forget it. I'm not going to abandon Bait, no matter how hard it is to get to him. He needs me."

Tails fixed the hedgehog with huge eyes. "_I_ need you too, Sonic."

"Yeah. I know, kiddo, and I'm not gonna abandon you either. But I have to help Bait out as well." When Tails was uncharacteristically silent, Sonic pressed on. "He's not so bad, Tails."

"I'm not gonna be friends with him, Sonic, not _ever_. Last time I did that, he led me right to his brother an' they sent me down to that place."

A slight smile appeared on Sonic's face. "I seem to remember, Tails, that last time you and I really talked, you threw a rock at my head and told me to go to hell."

Tails flattened his ears. "I'm _sorry_, Sonic!"

"I know, lil buddy. And so's Bait." Sonic shifted his weight. "And what do you mean, Knuckles doesn't want you anymore?"

Tails pressed his lips shut. He didn't want to tell Sonic about Knuckles planning to have him committed, just in case the hedgehog decided to do the same thing.

"Nothing," he mumbled. "Except..."

"Yeah?"

Tails swallowed. "I kept having nightmares, Sonic. Like...I found you an' asked you for help but you didn't wanna know me. You're not mad, are you? You're not mad that I went with Knux and not you?"

Sonic shook his head. "Mad, no. I was a little hurt – actually, a lot hurt, if I'm going to be honest – but never mad."

"You're not gonna call me a freak and tell me to piss off? Or hit me and knock me down?"

"If Knuckles—"

"Nuh uh, not Knux! You. Least, in my dream. You hit me and said _piss off you little freak_."

Sonic took a deep breath. "Tails, no matter how hurt or angry I was, I would never, ever do something like that to you."

Tails continued looking at Sonic in mute appeal. "Sonic?"

"Yeah?"

The fox shifted his weight. "C'n we be buddies again? Like before?"

"Tails." Sonic pulled Tails into a hug, careful not to jar the injuries. "Tails, we've never _not_ been buddies, not really." Looking down at the fox, he winked. "There's a good hotel up there. Let's get some room service, huh?"

A vigorous nod, and Sonic grinned. "Yeah? C'mon then lil bro. Let's get some food into you." He deposited Tails on the ground and the two of them walked over to the hotel in question. Sonic had been understating when he said it was a good hotel; the newly refurbished Sea Manor was one of the best on Mobius. Sonic had spent the odd night there, although their lack of any junk food usually made him avoid it like the plague half the time.

In this case, the rarity of his visits worked in his favour; the manager was so thrilled to see Sonic that he immediately put the hedgehog in the penthouse suite and informed him that the house would be picking up any expenses.

Up in the suite, Sonic managed to shoo away the personal butler and chef after only ten minutes of arguing, then turned his attention to Tails, who had headed straight into the jacuzzi and closed his eyes with an expression of bliss. Grinning slightly, Sonic reached out and picked up the phone, dialling reception.

"Hi, room service? Yeah, do you do chilli dogs? You don't, huh?" Sonic sighed. Well, it was always worth an ask. Time for Plan B. "Okay. I'll have one pella crumble, one portion of your chilli with rice, hold the rice, four finger rolls with sausages and a ladle—"

"And an apple pie," Tails piped up.

"—and an apple pie," Sonic agreed. "Actually, make that two and cancel the pella crumble." Covering the mouthpiece with his hand, he glanced at the fox. "Tails, what do you wanna drink?"

"Terapha juice!"

Sonic rolled his eyes. Teraphas were the rarest fruit on Mobius; a glass of juice cost upwards of two hundred Mobiums. "You won't like it, kiddo, but okay. One glass of terapha juice, and a carton of pella juice." There was a pause and he sighed. "Alright, make it a jug of freshly pounded pella juice if you must, but to be honest I'm just as happy with the pre-pounded variety. How long's that gonna be? Yeah? Okay, thanks." He hung up. "Half an hour! Can you believe that?" He sighed. "Oh well, might as well get started. C'mere, lil bro; I want to get your bandages off."

Tails scrambled out and came to sit next to the hedgehog.

"I miss Knuckles," Sonic heard him mumble and took a deep breath.

"I know, kiddo, but you'll have to make do with me for the minute." He risked a wink. "C'mon, I'm not _that_ bad, am I?"

Tails shook his head. "Uh uh. Least I know _you're_ not gonna—" He broke off suddenly and looked away.

"Not gonna what?" Sonic asked.

"Nothing. You gonna clean me up now?"

"Yeah. Yeah, kiddo, I am." Reaching out, Sonic took hold of a bandage and unwound it as gently as he could; it was crusted with dried blood and pulling it off took most of the scabs with it.

Sonic tightened his lips as the fox's back was revealed. Most of Tails' injuries were healing nicely, but there were a couple that looked like they were infected. Did infections spread from one injury to another? Sonic wasn't sure, but he had a nasty feeling that they might.

"Couldn't you have cleaned these?" he asked. "When was the last time your bandages were changed?"

"Dunno. Knux was gonna but...he didn't."

"Yeah. I figured as much." Sonic shook his head. "C'mon kiddo. Let's get you fixed up, huh?"

It took twenty minutes and three hastily ripped pillowcases before Tails' back was clean and bandaged again, and by that time the fox was almost asleep in Sonic's arms, only waking up when the food arrived.

"Here." Sonic scooped some chilli up in the ladle, dribbled it into a bun and then added a sausage and gave the finished chilli dog to Tails, who snapped it up in three bites and followed it with two others and his apple pie, washed down with one mouthful of terapha juice and about thirty more of pella. Big surprise there, Sonic thought wryly. Terapha was something of an acquired taste, and the hedgehog had decided very early on not to make the effort.

"So," he said idly, "suppose you tell me what you're doing down here now?"

"It was great, Sonic." Tails was now clinging determinedly to the hedgehog, something which worried Sonic. Tails was affectionate, but he wasn't clingy. "Me an' Knux, it was great, we had Angel Island all to ourselves. Then _she_ came along."

"She? She who?" Sonic asked.

"Lara-Le. She seemed nice at first but then she changed. She murdered Knux's dad, did you know that?"

Sonic went very still, then he said, "No. No, I didn't."

Tails sniffed. "'Sokay, Sonic; I don't think Knux knew either until I told him. But she told me what happened an' even showed me the bones an' she said if I interfered or spent too much time with Knux that she'd send me back to that place where you'n'Knux rescued me from." He shivered and twisted away, trying to bury into Sonic's chest in a way he hadn't done since he'd been a very young cub. "Then...then Knux..."

"Knux what?" Sonic asked quietly, after several minutes had gone by with no sound from the fox.

Tails looked up at Sonic beseechingly. "Sonic, am I nuts?"

It was unfortunate he chose to ask the question in those words; it had been a favourite exchange between Sonic and Tails when the fox had been younger, and so Sonic gave the time-honoured reply, "No, Tails, you are completely and utterly psychotic."

"Oh _Sonic_!" Tails twisted away from him, buried his face in the pillow and burst into tears. Taken aback, Sonic reached out and rested a hand on Tails' shoulder.

"Don't!" Tails jerked away. "Don't do that, Sonic! Not ever!"

"Does it hurt?"

Tails hiccuped once. "N-no, but...you can't."

"Why not, squirt?"

The use of his old nickname made Tails quiver all over before bursting into fresh sobs.

"Tails." Sonic reached out and stroked the fur on the fox's head. "Tails, c'mon, this isn't like you." He felt Tails cringe away and swallowed. "I'm not gonna hurt you, lil buddy."

"You can't, Sonic." Tails looked up at him, eyes still brimming. "You can't touch me any more, not ever."

"Why not?"

"'Cause..." Tails' voice trembled, along with the rest of him, and then he said, "'cause when people touch me I go feral, Sonic, an' I don't wanna go feral on you."

Sonic was silent for a few moments, then said, "When you asked me if you were nuts, Tails, you weren't kidding, were you?"

Tails shook his head, huge blue eyes fixed on Sonic, who sighed.

"Then let me answer that again, seriously this time. No, Tails, you are not nuts. You're not nuts, you're not crazy, you're not psychotic and you're not any other word in existence which means the same thing." He took a deep breath. "Tails, what happened on Angel Island? What did Knuckles say or do to you?" Sonic couldn't imagine the echidna actually hurting Tails. Whacking him one or yelling at him in a fit of temper, quite possibly, but not deliberately and coldbloodedly hurting him.

"He..." Tails broke off abruptly.

"Yeah?"

"He said..."

"Said what?" Sonic prompted, after a few minutes silence.

"He said...he was gonna put me in a home for wild kids." Tails quivered under Sonic's touch. "I don't wanna go in a home, Sonic an' that's why you can't ever touch me again, not ever, 'cause I don't wanna go feral on you. You gotta promise."

"Tails, listen to me," Sonic said very quietly. "I don't care if you do go feral on me; I'm not going to make you that promise, and damn that echidna for _ever_ making you ask for it!" he added tersely.

"You _gotta_." Tails looked up at Sonic. "I chewed Knux up in the mines. Maybe next time I'm gonna chew you up too, an' I don't wanna do that, Sonic."

Sonic quirked an eye ridge at him. "I'd be a pretty lousy national hero if I couldn't escape one fox, wouldn't I?"

"Someone else might not, Sonic. If someone brushes against me or pushes me an' I go feral..." Tails let the sentence trail off.

"When was the last time you went feral, kiddo?"

Tails frowned. "I guess...back in the tunnels, when Knux landed on top of me."

"Exactly. That was a long time ago, Tails, and frankly, if Knuckles used me as a landing pad, I think I'd probably go feral too," Sonic added with a wink, then became serious again. "Are you sure it was Knuckles?"

A nod. "Uh huh. At first he said he'd never do anything like that to me, then I fell 'sleep an' when I woke up he was saying to Lara-Le it might be for the best."

Sonic frowned. "That doesn't sound like him."

"Then who was it?"

"I dunno. But…Tails, do you remember when we first met Knuckles?"

A nod. Tails was clearly torn between seeking shelter in Sonic's arms and staying away in case he went feral, so Sonic settled the matter by pulling the fox into a hug.

"You remember how, at the end, he still didn't want to believe us? Not because he thought we were still after the Master Emerald, but simply because it would mean admitting he'd made a mistake?"

Another nod.

"Then you should know by now that the only thing harder than getting Knuckles to accept a new idea or concept is getting him to let go of an old one."

There was a silence.

"I missed you, Sonic," Tails said suddenly. "Knux is nice but he's not as easy-going as you."

The thought occurred to Sonic for the first time that this could well be the reason that Knuckles would have made a much better role model for Tails, and he smiled slightly.

"Guess I didn't do such a hot job of looking after you either, huh?"

"You did!" Tails' voice was muffled against Sonic's shoulder at this point, but there was no mistaking the vehemence there. "You were nice to me, Sonic, and nobody else ever was when I was a little kid. You bought me food an' sneakers an' played with me when everyone else jus' called me a freak an' ran away."

"There's more to looking after someone than feeding and clothing them." Sonic looked away. "I'm sorry I dragged you into all this, Tails. I should never have taken you into the fight."

"Yes you should! You couldn't've left me, Sonic; I wouldn't let you!" Tails looked up at Sonic. "And I'd do it all again too!"

Sonic looked down at him and managed a smile. "Yeah?"

Tails nodded. "Uh huh! An' if I hadn't been with you, you wouldn'ta been able to follow Robotnik into his fortress or get enough rings to get the Chaos Emeralds."

"And if you hadn't have been with me, we wouldn't have fallen out in Robotnik's fortress and you wouldn't have gone off on your own and been picked up by those slavers," Sonic said quietly.

"They'da done it anyway, Sonic," Tails mumbled, "and if you hadn't met me and wanted to save me, I'd have spent years down there and you wouldn't even know about it. Least now you know."

"Yeah," Sonic said very quietly. "And we managed to save that iguana, and Bait."

"See? It worked out okay after all." Tails looked away, then back at Sonic determinedly. "But I'm going back, Sonic. Lara-Le's gonna kill Knux if I'm not there. Knux can throw me out after if he likes or I'll leave 'cause I'm not going to any home, but I'm not gonna let him die either."

"Okay, kiddo, but I'm going with you. I want a little word with Knuckles as well," Sonic said ominously. Reaching down, he pushed Tails down into the bed, not ungently. "Now go to sleep."

"Can't. We gotta get to Angel Island." Tails' voice was a bare whisper, however, and he didn't protest when Sonic tucked the blankets around his small form.

"We can get to Angel Island in the morning, lil bro. Get some rest." Sonic lay down on the other bed. He'd only been there for two or three minutes when Tails padded over to him, dragging his blankets behind, and clambered in next to him, snuggling underneath the hedgehog's arm. Startled, Sonic edged over to make room and reached across Tails to adjust the now rumpled blankets, then drifted off into a troubled sleep that only lasted a few hours before Tails' nightmare – horrific even by the fox's normal standards – kicked in and Tails kicked out as hard as he could, scoring a direct hit on Sonic's shin.

"_Ow_!" Sonic sat bolt upright, spilling Tails sideways and started rubbing the affected area, then caught sight of Tails' rigid body and forgot his own pain. "Hey kiddo, are you okay?"

"They're gonna kill him." Tails' voice was barely audible and Sonic was prepared to bet every Mobium he possessed that the fox hadn't heard him. "They're gonna kill him an' rip him an' tear him an'—"

"Tails. _Tails_." Sonic spoke as soothingly as he could, reaching out to stroke the fur on the fox's head. "It's okay. It was only a dream. You're safe."

Tails blinked up at Sonic. "Knux?"

Sonic closed his eyes. "No, lil bro, it's me. It's Sonic."

"Sonic?" Tails looked away, resting his head on Sonic's chest, already more asleep than awake. "Sonic, I want Knuckles. Where is he? I gotta tell him something. I gotta tell him 'bout Lara-Le."

Sonic hardly dared breathe. This could be a major breakthrough, if he played it right...

"Why don't you tell me and if I see Knuckles before you do, I'll pass a message on?"

"Can't. Lara-Le said if I told anyone, she'd send me back to that place."

Sonic swore inwardly. Echidnas! Male, female, all alike. What gave them the ability – and more importantly, the _right_ – to pick someone's deepest fears out of the air and exploit them?

"I know where that place is, Tails. I also happen to be the fastest guy on Mobius, so if she does send you back, all I have to do is run on ahead and rescue you as soon as you get there."

Tails blinked up at him owlishly. "You promise, Sonic?"

"Yeah, sure I promise." Sonic rubbed the uninjured part of Tails' stomach, surprising a giggle from the fox. "Now go on back to sleep. We got a busy day tomorrow."

---

Pain shot from Knuckles' shoulder down to his hand and he winced.

"You're crazy," he managed to get out.

"Far from it, Knuckles," Lara-Le told him pleasantly. "Far, far from it. You don't have to be insane to do something like this; after all, I wouldn't call Robotnik insane."

"Robotnik isn't the one who just stabbed his own _son_." Knuckles' breath rasped in his throat; he wanted Lara-Le to think he was badly hurt, almost dead, wanted her off-guard…

"No, but then Robotnik was never crazy enough to have children." Lara-Le shook her head. "I never wanted a puggle, but Locke insisted, and then when I found out about those mines I decided to plant my own agent there."

"How old is that puggle?" Knuckles demanded. Lara-Le had released him now, was turning to go and was also almost in reach of a certain pillar…if he could only distract her long enough to grab it…

"Almost five. When she gets old enough, she'll do for my purposes. I can wait until then and the people responsible for the tunnels were very amenable."

"_You_ didn't create those tunnels, then?"

Lara-Le snorted. "Of course not! Those tunnels and that slave ring have both been in place for almost a hundred years now!" She shook her head. "At any rate, I can't hang around here, Knuckles. I have an appointment." Favouring him with an acidly sarcastic smile, Lara-Le added, "It was so nice to see you again. We must do this more often."

Turning, she strode away. Behind her, Knuckles' breathing abruptly smoothed and he stepped forward silently. Seizing the pillar in both hands and grunting slightly with the effort, wincing from the sudden pain in his shoulder, Knuckles ripped his target free from the surrounding masonry and swung it at Lara-Le, catching her by surprise and scoring a direct hit. The female echidna dropped to her knees, swaying slightly, then pitched forward onto her face.

Striving to make the move appear effortless, Knuckles tossed the pillar over his shoulder (accidentally shattering two more) and strode over to his mother's prone body.

"Sorry," he told her, a little curtly but sincerely, and walked out, wincing at the hot spikes of pain in his shoulder. He thought he might have pulled something there. Great.

It followed that by the time he got to Marble Garden Zone – with the intention of taking a running transport and using it to throw his mother off the edge of the Island – and caught sight of Sonic, Knuckles was in no angelic mood.

"What do _you_ want?" he snapped.

Sonic folded his arms. "There's a welcome, Knucklehead."

Knuckles frowned slightly. The words lacked Sonic's normal light tone, were almost…_angry_.

"Sonic, if you brought Bait with you—" he began.

"I didn't. Bait is currently a prisoner of both Robotnik and Raker. I was going to ask you to use Angel Island to chase the Egg Carrier, but after everything you've done, I'll be damned if I accept help from the likes of _you_!" Sonic coiled back into a combat stance. "How could you, Knuckles? Just tell me that. How the hell _could_ you?"

"How could I _what_?" Knuckles said, baffled. "Sonic, have you been drinking?"

The hedgehog shot towards him and Knuckles barely managed to jump out the way in time.

"Damn, what's your problem?" he demanded angrily. "First the kid throws me off a mountain, then my own mother stabs me and now I've got _you _on my case!"

"Tails told me what happened between the two of you," Sonic said, his voice dangerous.

"Did he? Well, I'm glad he told _you_! Now would it be too much to ask for someone to tell _me_?"

"You really need reminding, Knucklehead?"

"Yeah. Because you show up on my island, insult me, attack me and all without giving me any reason! I have a lot of crap going down in my life right now, I have someone who has come back from the dead to kill _me_, my kid sister's been tossed into slavery by our mother _and I don't need this as well_!" Knuckles paused for breath, then added in a calmer tone, "So what the hell's going on?"

"You were going to have Tails committed. I know he went feral on you, but if you can't hack that, you should never have agreed to take him."

The echidna stared openly at Sonic. "Is that what he told you? That I was sending him to some kind of…of _home_?"

"Aren't you?"

"No I'm damn well not! Lara-Le suggested the idea and I shot it down in flames, and Tails was there at the time!" Knuckles shook his head. "I can't think of any reason why the kid would want the two of us to fight, but if Tails said that I was planning to ship him off to some home or local nuthouse, then Tails is a damn liar!"

"I don't think _Tails_ is the one who's lying here, Knucklehead!" Sonic shot back, not missing a beat.

This time it was Knuckles who charged. Sonic waited until he was almost on him, then darted to one side just in time to receive the full blow of Knuckles' fist to his ribs; the echidna had learned from past mistakes and moved with Sonic.

Sonic literally flew back a full twelve feet, cracking his head hard against a rock. Dazed, blood trickling from a nasty gash on his forehead, he staggered to his feet, swaying slightly as the echidna closed in a second time.

"_No_!" Moving as fast as he could, Tails raced between them, arms outstretched in a bold effort to defend Sonic. "You want Sonic, Knucklehead, you're gonna have to come through me first!"

"The way you've behaved and the way I'm feeling towards you right now, Tails, that really would not be a problem," Knuckles said in dangerous tones.

Tails flattened his ears, but stood his ground determinedly. "I mean it, Knucklehead! I'll fight you. To the death," he added, with a slight tremor in his voice; he knew full well whose death it was likely to be.

Knuckles stepped forward and Tails braced himself, but the echidna simply lifted him up – not ungently – and placed him to one side.

"Don't go making threats you can't carry out," he told the fox coolly. "You're no killer, Tails."

"I am!" Tails dodged and came to stand in front of Sonic again, his good hand clenched into a small fist and raised in front in a classic fighter's stance. "An' if you come near Sonic, I'll prove it!"

A hand dropped onto Tails' shoulder and he was moved aside for the second time that day, this time by Sonic himself.

"It's okay, kiddo." Limping slightly, breath rasping in his throat, he stepped forward. "This is between Knuckles and me."

Tails' ears flattened even further. "I don't want you two fighting 'cause of me, Sonic!"

"I'm not fighting because of you, kid," Knuckles said, taking Tails' comment to himself. Staring at Sonic through narrowed eyes, he added, "I'm fighting because this lunatic attacked me without a word of explanation."

"Lunatic, is it?" Sonic echoed. They were circling now, moving around each other with deadly grace. "Let me tell you something, Knucklehead. I spent hour after hour comforting your so-called little brother when he kept yelling and crying for you. Are you planning to have me committed as well?"

"I never planned to have _anyone_ committed! I thought you knew me better than that, Sonic!"

"Funny, that," Sonic said flatly. "So did I."

Tails looked from one to the other. "Sonic, forget it! Please! Let's jus' say I was wrong, okay?"

Sonic ignored him, all his attention focused on Knuckles.

"I still don't know where you got this crazy idea, kid," the echidna said to Tails out the corner of his mouth.

"I_ heard_ you! You were talking to Lara-Le an' she said it'd only be for a month or something an' _you_ said that maybe it'd be for the best! An' then you came and told me you were sending me away!"

"Yeah, I know! I meant you were going to stay with Sonic or the CDA!"

Tails opened his mouth for a stubborn retort, closed it again as the echidna's comment hit home and then said, "Oh," in a very small voice.

"Yeah, exactly! 'Oh'." Knuckles stared at Tails. "You decided to sic Sonic on me because you thought I was planning to toss you in some nuthouse? I guess it never occurred to you to actually _ask_ instead of just running away?"

"You were gonna put me in a home!" Tails accused, still unwilling to banish the memory of Lara-Le and Knuckles' conversation.

"Why the hell would I do that when you already have a perfectly good home here on Angel Island?" Knuckles demanded. "Have some sense, would you?"

"It _was_ perfectly good," Tails mumbled sullenly. "Least until _she_ came along."

"You ran crying to Sonic because you were jealous of my mother?" Knuckles said incredulously. He shook his head. "Damn, kid, I thought you were more mature than that, I really did."

"I did _not_ cry!" Tails denied untruthfully. "Not _ever_. Did I?" this was to Sonic, who had followed the conversation with no small amount of confusion.

"What? Oh. You say so, Tails. What the hell's going on?"

Knuckles folded his arms. "You attacked me, Sonic, and you don't even know _why_?"

"Well, _that's _the sieve saying the colander leaks!" Sonic retorted, mind scrabbling for a foothold.

"Oh no." Knuckles fixed the hedgehog with an icy stare. "Not at all. I have never, ever attacked or fought you without due cause, Sonic. I might be mistaken in that cause—"

"_Might_, he says," Sonic muttered, not quite under his breath.

"—but I have always known _why_ I was fighting you." Knuckles shifted his weight. "So would it be too much to ask for an explanation?"

Tails sat down suddenly, ears drooping. "It's my fault, Knux."

"Why am I not surprised?" the echidna said heavily. "Keep talking."

"You remember when you an' Lara-Le were talking an' Lara-Le suggested putting me in a home for feral kids?"

"Yeah. I also remember slam-dunking that into the bedrock and telling her to get the hell off my island because of it while you were in the room, so how did that make you think I was going to put you in a home?"

"You said you were! When I left an' fell asleep in the Lava Reef Zone, an' then I woke up again and went back and you were talking to Lara-Le and she said that it wouldn't be permanent and that the hospital she had in mind specialised in treating ferals an' then _you_ said that it'd be for the best!"

Knuckles took a long, deep breath. "Tails, I swear by the Master Emerald that I never had any such conversation with my mother."

"Your _what_?" Sonic said.

Tails hesitated. "But…then…who—?"

"His _mother_?"

"I don't know," Knuckles retorted waspishly. So far he'd been thrown off a mountain, bitten, kicked, pounded, then stabbed by his own mother – who was currently lying unconscious in the Lava Reef – and he felt that he shouldn't have to put up with Sonic and Tails ganging up on him as well.

"He has a _mother_?"

"Yes, he has a mother," Knuckles snapped in an aside to Sonic before returning his attention to Tails. "Kid, when you left I went to guard my hoard and then moved it to somewhere Lara-Le won't find it. The last thing I said to her was _Sorry_, and that was only because I'd just clobbered her with a pillar. I moved the Master Emerald and was going back to the shrine to retrieve the rest of the Chaos Emeralds when I found you." He paused. "Well, Sonic, that's my side of the story," he added acidly. "What's yours?"

"I got grabbed by Tails in Seaside Hill Zone and he told me he overheard you plotting to put him in a hospital."

"Am I a plotter, Sonic?"

Sonic took a deep breath. "No, you're not."

Knuckles nodded slightly and seemed to relax. The atmosphere shifted slightly, became less antagonistic and more focused on Tails, who squirmed.

"Let me make sure I understand this," Sonic said, after some time. "I have just fought the mother of all battles with Knux for no better reason than you eavesdropped on his conversation and couldn't be bothered to get your facts straight?"

Tails hunched his shoulders, ears flat. "I'm sorry. I jus'...I thought...I got scared an'...Sonic, we're still buddies, right? Right?"

"Hm." Sonic considered Tails seriously. "I don't know, Tails. I'll have to think about that."

It was a joke, a joke in bad taste with even worse timing, but still a joke. In his heightened state of anxiety, however, Tails took it at face value, turned and raced away.

"Damn!" Sonic swore and started after the fox, then skidded to an abrupt stop as the ground inexplicably darkened. "What the—"

"Robotnik." Knuckles looked up to the Egg Carrier, which was casting a vast shadow on the ground, making it almost invisible in the night air. "Great. That's _all_ I need."

Sonic hesitated. Robotnik…Bait was up there, wasn't he?

"Bastard!"

Startled, Sonic glanced at Knuckles, who was shaking his fist at the Egg Carrier.

"What's your deal, Knux?"

"He's trying to _land_ here! Here! On _my_ island!" The echidna shook his head, spines flying wildly. "I'll show that filthy, obese, two-faced son of a—"

"Take it easy, Knuckles!" Sonic darted to stand in front of him. "Bait's up there. I don't want you blasting it out the sky before I've had a chance to get to him." He glanced over his shoulder. "And Tails…where'd he go?"

The echidna looked up at the Egg Carrier, then back at Sonic. "Never mind Tails. I'll sort him. You deal with Robotnik."

"You think I'm going to just blow Tails off for Bait?" Sonic said disbelievingly.

"I _think _that you can't save them both." Knuckles shook his head. "Go to Bait, Sonic. I'll look after Tails."

"I can't abandon him!"

"You're not." The echidna turned Sonic around and gave him a shove towards the rapidly descending dark shape that was the Egg Carrier. "But you can't do it all. Like you say on the surface, you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs."

Sonic looked away, hating it but knowing that Knuckles was right.

"Yeah," he muttered, then glanced up. "What's the Sargaryarn equivalent of that, anyway?"

"_Wu-siyat-ma yuli bihan gali_," Knuckles reeled off.

"Woo sih yart me...ma..." Sonic gave up. He had many talents, but languages weren't among them. "What's that mean?"

"'Never blame the rainbows for the rain'." Knuckles abruptly swerved to one side and started tearing up clumps of bracken while Sonic watched, bemused.

"Not that I'm not in favour of you taking up a non-contact sport like gardening," he said carefully, "but is now _really_ the time?"

"You'll need this," Knuckles said, not bothering to answer such an inane statement. Catching Sonic's arm, he pulled him forward and shoved him onto a round platform. Sonic frowned slightly.

"Hey, I remember these. Don't you…you run and then they fly and—"

"Great, you got it. Now _move_." Knuckles turned to head after Tails, glancing over his shoulder to say, "And remember not to jump this time; as soon as the weight leaves it, the platform goes back to its starting point! It's been rewired to be a little more sensitive to direction though."

Sonic shot him a look. "I didn't realise you were such a mechanical genius, Knuckles."

"My people's technology was far, far in advance of your own, Sonic, and besides, you don't spend weeks and even months in the company of someone like Tails without learning a couple of things."

He broke into a run, scanning the surrounding area, and almost yelled when Lara-Le rose up in front of him like an avenging angel with a headache.

"Going somewhere?"

Knuckles, torn between shock at seeing his mother still alive and relief that he hadn't actually killed her (along with a good measure of anger at being relieved) seized her by the throat and threw her away from him like a rag doll.

"I don't have time for this! Get out of my way!"

From her position in the dirt, Lara-Le smiled. "You say so, Knuckles. But first tell me one thing."

Knuckles, already tired from his fight with Sonic, stab wound throbbing angrily, half turned. "What?"

"Did I just see Sonic the hedgehog go past on a running transport?"

Knuckles continued staring dully at his mother. "I don't know. Why didn't you stop him and ask?"

Lara-Le rolled her eyes. "Because if it was Sonic, he happens to move faster than the speed of sound, Knuckles. That means that by the time you hear him shout _Hi_, he's already passed you."

The echidna shook his head. "I don't have time for this, Lara-Le. I have to find Tails, I have to apologise to him and convince him I'm not out to have him committed." He paused. "You have until then to get the hell off my island before I come looking for you."

"And _you_ have two minutes to get off _my_ island," Lara-Le said, her tone now dangerous. "You can consider yourself lucky I don't just kill you now. You hit me with a pillar!"

Knuckles shrugged. "I said I was sorry, didn't I?"

Lara-Le slammed into him without warning, knocking him back and towards the edge of the cliff. Struggling to get a foothold, Knuckles brought his head forward hard, but Lara-Le had anticipated it and dodged easily.

"You hear that?" she whispered, almost into his ear. Knuckles, listening, found that he did; the sound of splashing from the river followed by the snap of teeth.

"Iksors have an incredible sense of smell," Lara-Le practically purred. "They can trace blood better and faster than sharks, and I tossed a dead bird into that river not too long ago. They're probably all too eager for something a little meatier, though."

A tan and white blur shot past to ram Lara-Le hard, sending all three combatants sprawling and taking Lara-Le over the cliff with it towards the iksors. Knuckles, whose body often reacted faster than his mind at the best of times, flung himself down on the edge and seized Lara-Le in one hand and Tails in the other.

"Knuckles! Thank the Emeralds!" Relief was obvious in Lara-Le's face and voice and, Knuckles thought acerbically, with a school of iksors leaping and snapping only a few feet below her, that relief was probably genuine this time. "Pull me up, quickly!"

Knuckles tried and found he couldn't. The problem wasn't strength, but leverage; if he tried to pull both Lara-Le and Tails up, he'd only end up sliding over the cliff himself.

"Knuckles! Knuckles, _please_!" Tails' grip slipped and Knuckles tightened his hold.

"Help me!" That was from Lara-Le, who now had both legs drawn up to her chest to avoid the leaping iksors. "Knuckles, your loyalty is to your family and to your duty, not to some person you barely even know!"

Knuckles stared down. His grip was slipping; if he didn't do something soon, he was going to lose them both. On one side was his mother, dead and somehow miraculously restored to him. They'd had hardly any time together, and despite everything that had happened, he suddenly realised that he didn't want to lose her again; she was someone who could understand what it was like to be alone, who understood the necessity of guarding the Master Emerald. Damn, she was another _echidna,_ when he'd thought he was the very last survivor of his race. She could lead him to his sister – and Knuckles' brain still shut down every time he thought of that – or at the very least, tell him how to get her out. On the other was Tails, a kid that Knuckles would never even have met if Robotnik hadn't come for the Master Emerald and who the echidna had already saved countless times.

Knuckles closed his eyes.

"I'm sorry," he said hoarsely, and made his choice.

**Well, after planning towards this point ever since the beginning of _Caves_, it's finally reached (with only a couple of major plot changes :P) Anyway, Chapter 14 will be up very soon and in the meantime, if you read this, please review :)**


	14. The Egg Carrier

**Okay, so it's a pretty fast update but I'm on a Sonic high after winning a copy of Sonic CD for the PC on Ebay! Enjoy:P**

**Maverick87:D Thanks :) I'm glad you enjoyed it so much!**

**Kj: Heh, thanks :D I'll try :P **

**Private somebody: Thanks :) As for the rest of it, let's see now...Tails' sensitivity is most likely not going to be permanent ;) You know how there are times in life when everything seems to go wrong at once and there comes a point where it all gets on top of you? Tails is just having one of those moments :P Also, bear in mind that – mechanical genius aside – he's still just a little kid who's been through hell ;) Tails' fear of Sonic rejecting him was very real (after what happened in _Secrets of the Emeralds_ and his attitude towards Sonic in _Caves_, who can blame him? ;)**

**Asher Tye: Ooh, that story sounds like a good one :P Knuckles' choice/dilemma...yeah, I think you hit it pretty much on the head :D And thanks; I'm glad you liked the fight between Sonic and Knuckles. Actually, so did I ;) Sonic stuffing his foot in his mouth...well, maybe he will, a little...let's face it; if he didn't, he wouldn't be quite the same Sonic :P**

**Riven: (weg) Oh yeah ;) And proud of it…like I always say, what's a story without cliffhangers:D**

**Matri90: You'll find out very soon :P**

**FriedBrickWall: (_Knuckles: I'm dangling two people over a damn cliff and trying to stop myself going over at the minute! You mind cutting me some slack?_) Ignore him; he's got a lot on his mind at the minute ;) As to the rest…you'll find out soon enough. I will update _Rising Star _as soon as possible; the parts for that take a lot longer to write since I'm constantly cross-referencing back to my Notes and Doodles page I made of all the various Zones…don't wanna be inaccurate ;)**

**Shadow-spawn180: Thanks :) Living arrangements…heh. You'll find out at the end of all this, which is rapidly approaching in time for the sequel (yes, another one:D) and it might not turn out to be what you expect**

**BlueCheetah: You're back! (happy grin) Yes, I did miss you – I miss and wonder about everyone who reviews and then vanishes – although I did wonder if you were reviewing under another name (not the first time someone's confused me like that :P) And thanks; I'm glad you're still enjoying it :D**

**Draxidean Icefire T: Thanks :) As for what Knuckles is going to do...hmm, throwing himself off to save them both...I hadn't thought of that (gets evil glint in eye :P)**

My Memoirs by Me 

_Oookay. Let's just pretend that the last hour or so never happened. I didn't really attack Knuckles, nope, no way. Not me. Didn't do it, never there. And it's coincidence that I just happened to be on Angel Island, and Knuckles lent me his running transport to go and rescue Bait 'cause that echidna's got a great big loving heart._

_Hmm._

_I was actually convincing myself right up until that last part. My innocent act might need a little polishing._

_--Sonic the Hedgehog_

"_Robotnik_!"

Robotnik looked up from his lunch, saw Sonic and actually yelped.

"I see you managed to find your way up here," he drawled, although it was a poor attempt at covering up his earlier reaction. "You couldn't have waited until I'd finished eating, I suppose."

"I didn't have all day, doc," Sonic answered coolly. Robotnik's reaction had startled him; he had no idea how he currently looked, hadn't stopped to think how the blood from his gash had trickled down in rivulets until he appeared to be looking out on the world through red bars.

Robotnik sighed, placed his knife and fork carefully on top of his still reasonably full plate and pushed it away. "Alright, Sonic, let's get this over with. Wait here and I'll go and get armoured up. I must say, your timing leaves something to be desired; don't you know it's extremely rude to try and kill someone when they're eating?"

"I didn't come here to fight you, doc," Sonic said edgily.

"No?" Robotnik's expression shifted, curiosity mingled with suspicion. Megalomaniacal statements and bravado aside, he had a healthy – and extremely private – respect for Sonic and what he was capable of. "Then this has to be the second time you've actively sought me out and not tried to kill me. In that case, would it be _too_ much to ask for you to leave the fortress in one piece this time? I'm not made of Mobiums, Sonic, and you have no idea what the insurance on this place costs."

"I didn't think you could get insurance for aerial fortresses of doom," Sonic retorted. "And I'll do whatever I must to go in, get what I came for and go out again. If your fortress puts any obstacles in my way, I'll remove them."

"Speaking of fortresses, Sonic, exactly how _did_ you get into this one?"

"With a giant pogo stick. Robotnik, what did you do with—"

"Tails went to you for support, I suppose," Robotnik drawled, cutting him off. "Yes, Daimeri foresaw that you might return."

"Daimeri?" Sonic echoed.

"Lara-Le to you, I imagine. She really is a wonderful agent. I couldn't have set you and the Guardian up without her help."

There was a silence.

"You _tricked_ me into fighting Knuckles?" Sonic said furiously. Thoughts were racing through his head, thoughts which ranged from _how could I be so stupid_ to _I hope Tails is okay _and _oh crap, Knuckles is never going to let me live this one down, is he?_

"Of course," Robotnik said complacently. "Although I admit that Daimeri and I never expected such an outcome; we just wanted Tails off Angel Island. I projected a hologram of myself into the Hidden Palace, changed it to look like Knuckles and that was that."

"Yeah, well, I'm finished pounding on him now, so I thought I'd come here." Sonic tensed. "And if you _dare_ try and stop me—"

"My dear Sonic, I have no intention of stopping you. I imagine you're here for the jackal cub?"

"If you've hurt him—"

Robotnik chuckled. "Oh, we _are_ paranoid today, aren't we?" He shook his head, clicking his tongue pityingly. "Dear dear. Sonic, I promise you that whatever torture that cub has undergone has not been of my doing. Raker doesn't need my help to torment his brother. Besides, that was part of our agreement; he gets Bait and I get you. Of course, you evaded my robots, but honestly Sonic, did you really think I hadn't anticipated that? I knew you'd come looking for your little friend. You do seem to attract the waifs and strays of Mobius, don't you?" The doctor leaned back in his chair, which groaned under the pressure. "_Bait_ really is well named, don't you think so?"

Sonic clenched a fist. Coming face to face with the man who had tortured and broken him, who had crippled him and laughed all the time...red anger was mixing with a desire for revenge, and he didn't trust himself to give into either.

"I want Bait," he said through clenched teeth, "and I want Raker as well."

"_That_ puppy?" Robotnik's eyebrows arched. "Take _him_ and welcome, Sonic. The jackal is a complete maniac." He considered. "And coming from someone like me, that really is something of a condemnation." Folding both hands over his ample belly, Robotnik added, "I'm glad you showed up, Sonic, and not just because every time you walk into my fortress makes it easier for me to kill you or try out various new bots." He spoke casually, as though he was talking about gardening, then unexpectedly smiled. "How would you like to do a deal?"

"With you?" Sonic snorted. "Puh-leeze. How dumb do you think I am?"

"I think you'll like this one, Sonic." Robotnik extended both legs, crossing them at the ankles.

Sonic wanted to turn his back, but didn't dare and so he settled for folding his arms across his chest and staring at Robotnik as uncompromisingly as he could. When he spoke, his voice was so cold it unnerved even him.

"You took me prisoner, crippled me, tortured me mentally, emotionally, physically – hell, every way you could think of – made me turn against both Tails and Knuckles and now you have the nerve to try and _bargain_ with me? You sick bastard!"

"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me," Robotnik reeled off.

"That so?" Sonic said in the same icy tones. "Well, that's just fine, doc; the sticks and stones part will do me nicely."

"You want Bait, fine. I have nothing against the jackal and frankly, some of the things Raker did to him disgusted even me."

Sonic curled his lip. "Yeah? And I'm supposed to believe you'll let Bait go out of the kindness of your heart? You don't even know what that means anymore."

"Oh no, Sonic, not out of kindness. Let's cut to the chase, shall we? You want to take someone that isn't going to make any difference to my operations whatsoever, except to cut back on the amount of food consumed."

"Raker's been feeding him?"

Robotnik waved a hand. "On and off, yes. Also, Raker has no idea of real torture. I kept telling him that blood rusts chains and that increases the risk of septicemia and therefore death which would deprive him of his victim, and do you know what he said?"

"Good?"

"Exactly. So. I'm prepared to let you go in, pick up Bait and leave without being disturbed, on the condition that you take Raker with you. I don't care what you do with him, but I no longer want him in my fortress."

Sonic snorted. "And naturally, I don't destroy any of your robots or firearms."

"The security systems will be shut down, and my robots have already been ordered to store themselves out of sight. If any disobeyed me and are still out there, frankly you'd be doing me a favour by destroying them."

Sonic stared at him. "You have no loyalty towards your creations, do you?"

Robotnik blinked. "That's rather an odd question, Sonic. You might as well ask me if I have any loyalty towards my toaster. Wait a minute." He flicked a few switches. "There you go. All the doors between here and Bait are unlocked, and the robots are out of the way."

Sonic folded his arms. "And I'm just supposed to trust your word for this, am I?"

"Do as you please, Sonic – you usually do anyway – but all I'll say on that score is that if you go exploring, I will not be held responsible for the consequences. I want Raker removed, and if your price for taking him away or dealing with him is for me to let you take Bait, who I never wanted in the first place, then that's fine with me." Reaching out, he pulled the plate towards him and started eating, chewed and swallowed before saying, "Now, if you'll excuse me, I really am rather busy."

Sonic looked towards the open corridor, then back to Robotnik, then at the corridor again. He continued doing this in an agony of indecision until Robotnik finally said irritably, "Sonic, for goodness' sake, _go_! Raker is getting more and more unstable and if you really want to get to him in time…" He let the sentence trail off impressively.

Sonic darted to the door, then paused to look back at the doctor. "If Bait is dead, Robotnik, then all bets are off," he said, his voice harder than diamond.

Robotnik shrugged. He didn't think it mattered, since if Bait was dead Sonic was likely to annihilate Raker completely, which would solve Robotnik's problem very nicely.

Seemingly satisfied, Sonic turned and raced away and Robotnik shook his head, smiling slightly. Oddly enough, he genuinely had no intention of double-crossing Sonic; being able to sleep at night without worrying about death by Raker was well worth Sonic's life, and there would be other opportunities to kill the pesky hedgehog.

Looking out, Robotnik caught sight of a familiar sight and his dreams of killing Sonic dissolved in a wash of fear.

The Void… 

He didn't know what the Void was – or if it even _was_ a void – but he knew what it did. Something that sucked the air out of your lungs, your very cells…Robotnik had taken a few of the victims up for scientific analysis. So far he'd managed to evade the Void, but it looked like that was about to change.

He started flipping switches again in a frenzy.

---

Some distance away and unaware of all this, Bait was in a haze, something brought about by agony, terror, lack of nourishment and no sleep; whenever he tried, Raker kicked him awake. He'd been burned, kicked, scalded and electrocuted, and had reached the point where all he wanted was for the torment to end, either through sleep or death.

"Did you know Sonic's taken Tails back?" Raker said pleasantly.

Bait didn't answer, barely even registered the words.

"I asked you a question, Bait." A kick, delivered with pinpoint accuracy to the younger jackal's broken ribs, caused him to yelp loudly. "Did you know Sonic's taken Tails back? Didn't take him long to get over you, did it?" Raker shook his head, smiling. "At least he's stopped sticking his nose into my affairs now. It's just you and me, Bait, for the rest of your life."

"Like that's gonna be long," Bait managed to whisper. Talking hurt and he wondered if he was coming down with something. Given the freezing air (coupled with the fact that Raker often liked to toss a bucket of freshly melted ice over him for the hell of it) he thought it was very likely.

"You think I'm going to _kill_ you, Bait?" Raker shook his head. "Oh no, no, no, no, _no_. We're family, aren't we?"

"Dint stop you before."

This time the kick was far harder and Bait couldn't bite back a hoarse scream as he felt more ribs cave in.

"You saw nothing, Bait! _Nothing_! And besides, our bastard father deserved it, interfering between the two of us! Like I keep telling people; you're my brother, ergo you're my business."

Something rammed him hard in the back and he literally flew forward, slamming into the wall and dropping to the ground.

"_My_ brother," Sonic said in a deadly tone from behind him.

Bait didn't hear this through the new fog of agony, only registering the fact on a very primeval level that Sonic was there and very, very angry.

Sonic stared down at the young jackal, his fury so strong he could literally taste it. Bait's fur was missing in places to reveal vicious burns, and the ribs on his right were oddly uneven, and visible. Although Bait had always been scrawny – although he'd started filling out a little with Sonic – now he was positively emaciated.

The cage he was locked in was barely large enough to hold him, even curled up and half starved, and it also meant that there was no way Bait could get away from his tormentors.

"Bait." Sonic reached down and touched the jackal's shoulder. Bait whimpered, an animal sound, and cowered away, ears flat against his skull. "Bait, kiddo, it's okay. It's Sonic." Sonic's pulse quickened. _Not feral. Please, please don't let him have gone feral._

Bait's large brown eyes fixed themselves onto Sonic's face, and the hedgehog saw the suspicion in them. It was the first time he had ever really been the enemy, and he didn't much like it.

"Kiddo, I'm not mad at you, okay? I came to get you out of all this."

Bait closed his eyes and let his head drop back onto his arm, a resigned posture that told Sonic all too well what the jackal was waiting for.

"That wasn't exactly what I meant, Bait. C'mon." Sonic wanted to pull Bait out, to carry him out of the Egg Carrier and to safety, but common sense held him back. If Bait really had been driven feral...well, Sonic didn't like to think about that.

"Bait, talk to me please." Sonic managed a smile. "Come on, kiddo; it's been at least a month and you got nothing to say to me?"

"Sonic?" Bait's voice was cracked and dusty, barely audible. "Sonic, I...I..."

Relief exploded in Sonic and he closed his eyes with the rush of it. Not feral. Thank the Emeralds for that.

"Sonic...I dint plant the bomb..."

"Bomb?" Sonic had all but forgotten the explosion back in Scrap Brain Zone. "What...oh. Oh, that."

A nod. Bait seemed to be trying to reach through the bars, to grab Sonic's hand but he didn't have the strength.

"I dint do it, Sonic. Honest."

Carefully, Sonic reached over and took hold of the jackal's hand. "I know you didn't, kiddo. I never thought you did, not really."

The jackal's ears flattened. "Sonic, why dint you come sooner? I kep' tellin' Raker you'd come an' rescue me but you dint."

Guilt shot through the hedgehog, burning away the relief. In a way it would have been better if Bait had shouted at him, accused him, even hit him.

"I was...scared." That was one hell of an understatement; going into the mines had been bad enough but going back into Robotnik's fortress...Sonic shivered. He hoped he never had to do anything like that for the rest of his life.

"So was I." It wasn't said as an accusation, merely a statement of fact, but Sonic still winced and rounded on Raker – who was already on his feet – in an attempt to cover it up.

"Get me the key."

Raker stared at him, arms folded arrogantly across his chest. "Get it yourself, hedgehog."

It was only the fact that Bait was watching which kept Sonic from seriously attacking Raker, from slicing through whichever appendage presented itself first, and so he settled for racing up and ramming the jackal at top speed, sending him crashing into another wall.

"Let's try this again, shall we?" he said icily. "Get. Me. The. Key."

Raker struggled to his feet, glaring at Sonic. "Spin on it."

"There ain't no key," Bait said hoarsely. "Raker dumped it an' said I wunt gettin' outta here, not never."

"Yes, and you never are!" Raker started towards Bait but Sonic slammed into him a third time. This time when Raker cracked his head on the wall, he didn't get up again.

"Right." Sonic turned back to Bait. "Now, how the hell are we going to get you out of this, kiddo?" Without waiting for a reply, he frowned as he studied the cage, then shifted his weight. "Bait?"

"Yeah?"

"Close your eyes."

Bait shifted. "Why?"

"Because I want to try something, but you have to keep absolutely still, and if you see it coming you'll move."

"I won't, honest," Bait protested, but he shut his eyes obediently.

Sonic stared at the cage for a long, long time. There was no margin for error here; if he missed, Bait would die.

When he thought he had it, he broke into a sprint, curled over and sliced through the bars. Behind him, Bait yelped and Sonic dug in his heels, skidded into the far wall and then turned and raced back to him.

"Are you okay? I didn't get you, did I?"

"Nuh uh. You jus'…you surprised me, 'sall."

"Sorry. I didn't want to tell you in case you moved and I hit you by mistake." Sonic reached in. "C'mon, let's get you out of that thing."

This was easier said than done, as Bait's muscles – or what was left of them – didn't want to respond and Sonic had to pretty much prise him out of the cage in the same cramped, curled position.

"There you go."

One large ear swivelled towards him. "Sonic?"

"Yeah?"

"I dint stomp the watch neither."

The hedgehog slapped a hand to his forehead. "That reminds me! I got something that belongs to you, kiddo." Sonic reached into his bag and pulled out the shattered watch, handing it to Bait. "Here. For the Emeralds' sake, take it before the Good Taste Committee search my bag and arrest me for extreme tackiness." He winked.

The jackal stared at it. "Where'dja get _that_?"

"Raker sent it to me, along with a note that he tried to convince me was from you."

Bait gave up trying to fasten his watch again – his cramped fingers wouldn't respond – and settled for holding it instead. "How'd you know I dint send it?"

Sonic stroked his jaw as he pretended to consider. "We-e-ell...don't take this the wrong way, Bait, but I've seen you write. I've also seen people have their teeth pulled with less effort, and your spelling and grammar leave something to be desired."

Bait flattened his ears. "Jus' never done it much before, 'sall," he mumbled.

"I wasn't criticising you, kiddo. But it does mean that when I receive a note that's perfectly spelt, written in near perfect handwriting, you're about the last person I think it came from." He winked again and in spite of the agony in his body, Bait managed an answering grin.

"Yeah...well, Raker got all the schoolin' in our fam'ly. I c'n jus' about read'n'write an' that's it."

"Which isn't a bad thing, Bait, especially not in this kind of situation." Sonic took a deep breath. "Listen, I know this is gonna hurt but I'll have to carry you, okay?"

Bait flattened his ears. "I c'n wait, Sonic, my legs'll work soon."

"I'm sorry, kiddo, but we can't wait. Robotnik said he'd let us out and I don't want to hang around long enough for him to change his mind." Sliding his hands under the jackal's battered body, he lifted Bait into the air. "It won't be for long, I promise."

Tying a cable around his waist, he attached the other end to Raker's ankle.

"What're you doin'?" Bait demanded, nervous now.

"I promised Robotnik I'd take Raker off the Egg Carrier. Whether he's your brother or not, he has to face up to what he's done."

"He ain't done nothin', Sonic," Bait said, almost inaudibly.

Sonic looked down at him. "Bait, I know what he did to your father. Caud told me."

Bait's ears flattened further. "Yeah? What else'd he tell you?"

"He told me why you don't like baths – the real reason, I mean – and that was it." Sonic started to run before the jackal could answer, stopping at just over ninety miles per hour. He knew he'd pay the price for it very soon – Bait suffered from motion sickness and had a tendency to throw up violently whenever the hedgehog went above fifty – but the thought of Bait puking on him outside was far preferable to the thought of them both being trapped inside.

As they reached the bridge, Sonic caught sight of Robotnik's form bent over a control panel, working the switches there feverishly, and his eyes narrowed. Picking up the pace, he raced forward and slammed into Robotnik, knocking him back and standing between him and the controls.

"Why am I not surprised, doc?" he said flatly. "What were you doing? Leaving a little goodbye present in the shape of a bomb?"

"We can bicker about this later," Robotnik said sharply. "Get away from the console!"

The hedgehog snorted. "So you can throw me into your jail with Bait again? How dumb d'you think I am, Robuttnik?"

"Sonic, I swear I will let you and your jackal friend _go_, but if you don't let me back to the console we'll _all_ die!"

Sonic frowned slightly. If the look on Robotnik's face was anything to go by, the doctor genuinely was terrified.

And if _Robotnik_ was terrified…Sonic had never seen him like this before, not even when they'd been fighting.

"What's going on?"

"No time to explain! _Move_ it!" Robotnik wasn't quite stupid enough to actually grab Sonic; instead he hauled himself to his feet and lumbered over as fast as he could, flipping buttons and switches.

"What the hell's happening?" Raker demanded, from where he was rapidly regaining consciousness.

Robotnik opened his mouth to answer, but at that moment the Egg Carrier slammed into the Void.

**Well, I did say the Void would be making a comeback (weg) Hope you enjoyed this and if you read, please review :P**


	15. Knuckles' Choice

**Kj: Heh, I know :P I am cruel sometimes ;) As for the 'mother of all fights'...well, it's the first time Sonic's really taken serious damage from Knuckles, and besides, you know he likes to play things up a little ;)**

**Awdures: Thanks :D As far as Robotnik's behaviour goes I think it's a little bit of both ;) He doesn't think Sonic will actually take that final step, but he doesn't want to give the hedgehog the upper hand by seeming weak or frightened either ;)**

**Private somebody:) Thanks, I'm glad you think so :D Sonic vs Robotnik, yeah, I love writing that, just letting the two personalities ricochet off each other. And...yeah, about the only really predictable thing in most of my fics is that there'll be a cliffhanger ;) **

**Riven: (grins) Thanks :D And the Void...well, given what a large part it plays in the sequel, I had to bring it back :P **

**Maverick87: Heh, I'm not sure Sonic or Robotnik would agree with that :P And I'm in that "finish it" mode now; there are only a couple more chapters to go before the end of this one (and the sequel begins :P)**

**Shadow-spawn180: Yep ;) And I've had a couple of people demand to know what was happening with the Void, so I thought it was about time it made a comeback :P "Slammed into"...it is sort of a figure of speech, yeah...in much the same way as someone can slam into water :P**

**Asher Tye: Thanks :) As for Bait's getting patched up...heh, you'll see in time :P**

**FriedBrickWall: Noodles? (laughs) Love it! You will find out about the 'crazy' joke very soon, I promise :P As for which of the Sonic games I've beaten...well, I've beaten _Sonic 1_ (Master System) _Sonic 2_ (Genesis) _Sonic Adventure DX_ and _Sonic Heroes_ (PC) The others...I've kind of beaten _Sonic 3/Sonic and Knuckles_...I tended to use the level select feature where possible ;)**

**Draxidean Icefire T: Thanks :D Raker...hmm, I think you're right; 'demonic' is a very good way of putting it ;)**

**Taryn Wander'r: (_Sonic: Damn right it's hard!_) Thanks :) Two guys and a baby...ooh, very tempting :P I have the next two stories in the series mapped out in my head, so maybe :P**

**Parslie: (blushes) Thanks; glad you like it :)**

**Momi-chan: (blushes again) Thanks, I try my best :P The Sagayan language...yes, I did kind of make it up. It's partly based on Tok Pisin (which is a dialect from Papua New Guinea) and partly based on two Aboriginal dialects (Kamilaroi and Wagiman; I'm obsessed with languages too) Basically I look up the words I want (or the closest I can get) take that word and change it to put my own spin on it...and other words I pretty much make up :P I want to build a Sonic website at some point (and someone commented that they'd like to see a Sagayan-English dictionary :P) so I'll probably incorporate it there ;)**

**TC Chan: Thanks :) As far as a character walk out goes...well, the closest I've come to it is Knuckles feeling terrified of getting more hugs from Tails...poor lil echidna doesn't know how to handle that :P**

**Toboe16: Heh, no worries :P And you shall find out about Knux's choice in due course ;)**

_Guardian's Log no. 11491_

_I have just had to choose between saving the life of my mother and that of one of my closest friends. Lara-Le's words made up my mind in the end. She's right; loyalty to family takes precedent over all others._

_But...I'm sorry. I've no idea why, given the crap that went down between us just before the incident, but I'm still sorry._

_--Knuckles the Echidna_

Knuckles didn't know how long he'd been kneeling on the edge of the cliff, didn't, in fact, have any memory of kneeling down to begin with. The guilt and anguish which had been twisting and roaring through every nerve in his body had blocked everything else out, everything except Lara-Le's words.

_Your loyalty is to your family, not some person you barely even know._

"You're damn straight," Knuckles whispered as Tails clung to him, shaking all over.

Honour was satisfied. After almost thirteen years, honour was finally satisfied. Echidna law dictated that if a parent was murdered, it fell to the child to avenge him or her, and Knuckles supposed he'd done that. It wasn't the death he would have wanted for Lara-Le if he'd been in a position to choose – he genuinely hadn't wanted her to suffer – but it still amounted to the same thing.

Eventually, when Knuckles could trust himself to talk without howling, he cleared his throat.

"C'mon kid," he said quietly. "Let's go back to the hut."

Tails didn't answer, but he didn't fight either, didn't, in fact, react in any way. Knuckles wondered dully if this was something to worry about – the kid had been much the same way after Sonic's supposed death – then found he couldn't bring himself to care.

The journey back to the hut seemed to take twice as long as usual, and Knuckles wasn't sure if he was glad or sorry when they finally reached it. At least all the time he'd been walking he'd been able to distance himself from his own mental turmoil.

Placing Tails on the bed, he started to move towards the other end of it to sit down when small arms wound themselves determinedly around Knuckles' waist and held on. Startled, the echidna glanced down to see Tails' huge blue eyes fixed on him in mute appeal.

"You don't want me to move," he guessed.

The fox shook his head violently and Knuckles sighed. "Kid, I'm gonna stay right here in this hut, I swear."

The eyes narrowed, became more watchful and distrusting and Tails tightened his hold.

"Tails," Knuckles said flatly, "let go."

No reaction.

"I'll stay here if that's what you want, but right now what _I_ want is to sit down, and I can't do that all the time you're clinging to me like a limpet. Let go of me."

Still nothing. Knuckles might as well have been talking to the bed for all the response he got. He shrugged. "Fine. We'll do it the hard way."

Reaching down, he calmly and methodically unwound the fox's arms, holding Tails off long enough to settle himself on the bed next to him...although the fact that the fox then wrapped both arms around Knuckles' neck and squeezed almost tightly enough to cut off the echidna's air supply didn't seem to be much of a fair trade. No matter what he said, Tails still clung to Knuckles tightly, still trembled. The echidna gave up trying to persuade the fox to let go and instead cast about for some way to get the kid talking.

"You really thought I was gonna drop you?" he said at last.

A nod. Knuckles could feel a distinct heat on his skin as well, and suspected that Tails wasn't just quivering from the cold and his own fear.

For the first time in his life, the echidna was utterly helpless and he didn't much like the feeling. At that moment, he would have given almost anything for Sonic to have been here, to have comforted Tails. What did you do in a situation like this, and how did you do it?

One thing was for sure; Knuckles wanted to get Tails talking before Sonic left the Egg Carrier. The echidna wasn't afraid of Sonic by any means, but even he didn't much fancy the prospect of facing the hedgehog and telling him that Sonic's beloved little brother had been driven into a near-catatonic state by Knuckles himself, no matter how indirectly.

"You've had a pretty screwed up life, huh kid?" Knuckles said aloud, more to himself than to Tails. "First those incidents with the bullies, then you got sucked into a war zone with Sonic, then the hedgehog upped and died on you, and then screwed you over in Robotnik's fortress, then you wound up as a slave and now this. Damn, you're not even into double digits yet."

Tails didn't answer, but one ear flicked to let the echidna know he was listening. Encouraged, Knuckles kept talking.

"I guess if I was Sonic, this would be the point where I'd rock you or pet you and tell you that it was gonna be okay, but I can't do that. Nobody ever did it for me when I was your age, and now I can't do it at mine. But I think I can say that it's going to be alright now."

Tails shifted bright blue eyes to look up at him. "Knux? Knux, I'm so sorry—"

The echidna closed his own eyes. "No, kid, _I'm_ sorry. I should've listened to you, it's just...it was..."

"I thought you were gonna drop me," Tails said, his voice barely audible. "I thought you were gonna let me fall. I thought you were gonna choose your mother."

"I chose you, didn't I?" Knuckles drew in a long, shuddering breath and couldn't find the words to go on. He'd been in a position to observe what the kid hadn't, had seen how Lara-Le had been reaching for Tails, trying to drag him out of her son's grasp, and Knuckles had seized the fox in both hands without a second thought.

"I'm sorry," Tails said again, his voice now muffled against the echidna's shoulder. His shaking had subsided, although he didn't show any inclination to loosen the choke hold around Knuckles' neck and waist. No one and nothing could match Knuckles for power (well, except possibly Mighty) but what Tails lacked in strength he made up for in determination. "I shouldn'ta left. I knew what she was gonna do."

"You came back, though," Knuckles said quietly. "Even though you thought I was gonna have you committed, you still came back. That took guts, kid. A lot of guts."

"She said that you'd believe whatever she said 'cause echidnas don't lie. She said that if I got in the way she'd send me back to that place an' send you with me. I didn't wanna take that risk so I couldn't stay here but I wasn't gonna let her win no matter what happened. I'd've died first."

_Yeah, you would_, Knuckles thought numbly. Lara-Le had murdered his father, the echidna she'd been mated with for some ten years before Knuckles himself had arrived on the scene. She was hardly likely to think twice about a kid like Tails.

"Knux, do you think I'm crazy?" Tails asked suddenly. "'Cause I really did see and hear you and Lara-Le talking."

"No, kid, I don't. I believe you saw someone. It just wasn't me." Knuckles hesitated, then told himself _what the hell_ and said very quietly, "How'd you find out about my father?"

"Lara-Le told me about it. Took me to where your father's body was on all those spikes. Uh." Tails offered up the one crumb of comfort he had. "She did say she felt bad that you found him so soon. She wanted you to wait until he'd decomposed so's you didn't have to see all the blood and shattered bones and where the carrion bugs and birds had dug out his eyes and...and...this isn't helping you feel better, is it?"

"No. But thanks for trying."

"Oh." Tails leaned against Knuckles' ribs, enjoying a feeling of security he hadn't felt since Lara-Le had first turned up that fateful day. "What would make you feel better?"

Knuckles didn't know. It had been bad enough coping with his mother's supposed death the first time, but at least then it hadn't been his fault.

"Forget it," he said at last. "I coped with it once. I can do it again."

Tails pushed himself away and fixed Knuckles with an expression that was almost comically stern.

"Don't give me that, Knucklehead! I know how it feels! I know how it felt after Sonic so don't try and pretend you're being a big brave warrior 'cause I won't believe you!"

Knuckles scowled at Tails. In his own way, the fox was helping him a great deal, if only by being there for the echidna to vent his feelings on. "Ask me if I care what you believe."

"You do an' you _know_ it!" Tails retorted, scowling back at the echidna. "I know it hurts, Knux, an' I don't believe that you're totally sure about believing that you made the right choice when you picked me an' not her to save so don't expect me to believe that _you_ believe you're sure you're not hurting, 'cause I'm sure you _are_!"

"What?" Knuckles said, after a couple of seconds had gone by.

Tails rolled his eyes in exasperation of all things adult (and echidna) and settled for hugging Knuckles tightly.

"Feel better?"

"No," the echidna said candidly, "I'm feeling freaked, like I always do when you do that to me without warning."

"You might dodge if I warned you," the fox pointed out. "An' you don't _warn_ someone when you're about to do something like that, you jus' _do_ it. An' I like hugging you anyway, 'cause you're more..." Tails faltered. He had been about to say _cuddly_, but if you tried to put Knuckles and cuddly together, it didn't work no matter how much you twisted it around.

"I'm more what?" Knuckles said, an edge in his voice that said he wasn't sure he wanted to know.

"Well...you don't have quills like Sonic does," Tails improvised, "so there's almost no chance I'm gonna get my fingers sliced off 'less you get a chainsaw." He hesitated. "You don't have a chainsaw, right Knux?"

Knuckles rolled his eyes. "Not unless you left one here before you went gallivanting down to the surface, no."

Tails flattened his ears. "I didn't gallivant, Knuckles, you know that." Natural inquisitiveness overtook bad memories and he added, "How do you gallivant, anyway?"

"I don't know. It's not something I ever wanted to do."

"Knuckles?"

"Yeah?"

"C'n I stay here? Just for a while?" Tails caught hold of Knuckles' arm and dragged it around his shoulders, clinging to it like grim death and leaning against the echidna's ribs. "I know I broke your stuff, but I just wanna stay for a bit. I'll stay out your way, I promise, but...well, I got nowhere else to go. Just 'til my tail gets better and I can fly again, then I'll leave and never come back, I promise." He half turned, snuggling back against the echidna and pulled his arm further across, using it as a blanket. "Miss you though," Knuckles heard him mumble, and shook his head.

"Tails, you stay here as long as you want."

Tails didn't reply, but Knuckles felt the fox's grip tighten convulsively.

"You're staying too, right Knux?" Tails said eventually.

"Yeah. Yeah, kid, I'm not going anywhere, not after the hell I had to go through to get back here."

The echidna didn't know how long he and Tails sat there, both lost in their own thoughts, but the moons had moved quite a way across the sky before Tails said drowsily, "Knux?"

"Yeah?"

"Tell me a story?"

Knuckles closed his eyes. "Not now, kid." Most of his stories had come from Lara-Le, and he didn't want to be reminded of her.

"Okay." Tails' voice was subdued, but there was something in it which said he understood. "What're we gonna do now, Knux?"

The echidna took a long, deep breath. "Go on as normal, I guess."

Tails fixed him with a look. "But things aren't normal, Knux, are they? It's like you said to Lara-Le; you can't pretend stuff never happened."

"No." Knuckles looked away, spoke very quietly. "I know." He opened his mouth to say something else, although he had no idea what, when lightning pain shot through his head and he winced, sucking in his breath with an audible hiss.

"Knux?" Tails frowned perplexedly. "Knux, are you okay?"

"Yeah," Knuckles lied. "Fine."

The pain came again, more intense this time, and Knuckles half snarled with the agony.

"No," he said instead. "We have to get out of here."

Tails' eyes widened, then he nodded and started to get to his feet. He'd made it about halfway before Knuckles seized him, swung him into his arms and ran for the door.

"Knuckles!" Tails looked over the echidna's shoulder and went rigid. "Knux, it's the Void!"

"I know," Knuckles said through clenched teeth. He did know too, had known since that first pain.

Picking up the pace, he sprinted up the track leading to Ice Cap Zone. He just hoped like hell he and Tails made it in time.

"_Knuckles_!" Tails shrieked the word, almost into the echidna's ear. "Knuckles, _look_!"

Knuckles whirled, caught sight of the Egg Carrier as it entered the Void and felt his blood run cold.

_Sonic!_

"Knux, Sonic wasn't on that thing, was he?" Tails looked up into Knuckles' face, begging for a negative answer. "He wasn't, was he?"

Knuckles met Tails' gaze very quietly. "He was, kid. I'm sorry."

"But...but...KNUCKLES!"

The echidna winced. "You yell in my ear like that one more time and I'll dump you on your behind!"

"The Egg Carrier's gone!"

"What?" Startled, no longer angry, Knuckles looked back.

"Where'd it go? It jus' went into the Void an' vanished."

"I don't know, kid, and right now we got more important things to worry about." Leaping over a snowdrift, Knuckles landed squarely on the waiting snowboard and leaned forward as it raced down the slope.

Tails closed his eyes. Last time he'd attempted to snowboard, it had taken him thirty minutes to dig himself out of the snowdrift, and he didn't much fancy repeating the experience.

Knuckles, however, had been snowboarding down this slope ever since he'd been old enough to balance properly, and, timing his move to perfection, crouched down and jumped off the snowboard and into a cave that was halfway up the mountain, and currently filled with his stuff. He'd also moved the Master Emerald there; if there was a problem, he wanted to be with the gem.

Nerves forgotten, Tails wriggled until the echidna let him down, then stared about with huge eyes.

"_This_ is your hoard, Knux?"

"Yeah," Knuckles said shortly.

"Wow." Tails looked around at the gold, the jewels and the artifacts. Knuckles was far more interested in one-of-a-kind objects than in obtaining his thousandth jewel, as the vast amount of statuettes, pictures and what looked like tribal masks bore witness...not that Knuckles' preference was unusual. Echidnas had been known for being like dragons with their hoards, only a lot more picky.

"You got a _crown_? Cool!" Tails snatched up the emerald-encrusted gold circlet and placed it on his head, where it promptly dropped over one ear. Remembering too late that hoards were sacred, that you weren't permitted to see them without the owner's consent, much less handle them, he pulled it off hastily. "Uh...sorry Knux. Guess I got a little carried away."

Knuckles, who had gone completely rigid at Tails' irreverence, relaxed with a visible effort.

"It's okay." He forced the words out through stiff lips; Tails hadn't meant any harm, after all.

But damn, his hoard was his hoard!

"You gotta be richer than Sonic with all this stuff," Tails said, reaching out towards an almost perfect diamond the size of his fist before remembering and snatching his hand away again.

"Richer than Sonic?" Knuckles snorted. "That can't be hard."

Tails fixed him with a solemn look. "Nuh uh, Knux; he's got _millions_. The publishing and manufacturing house in Metropolis Zone pays him royalties on everything they sell with him in it an' they been doing that since he first met me. I was only four and he took me to Metropolis Zone and they gave him a cheque for a quarter of a million Mobiums and he put it in a bank and they've been giving him royalties ever since."

Knuckles stared. He'd had no idea...if Sonic was getting even just one Mobium per item sold, he'd be raking it in.

_And he doesn't have a home, so he doesn't have to worry about paying bills..._

Well, at least that explained how the hedgehog always seemed to have a limitless supply of cash. Hell, the interest alone must be phenomenal.

"Knuckles?" Tails looked up at him. "The Void can't get in here, can it?"

"I don't know." Knuckles caught hold of the fox with one arm and rested the other on the Master Emerald. He wondered if it was enough to protect the island, wondered how painful dying in the Void was. Very, at least if the tortured expressions on the bodies of its victims had been anything to go by.

The Master Emerald glowed suddenly, and Knuckles felt its power surge through him and into Tails, who yelped loudly and struggled to break out of the echidna's hold.

"Tails, no!" Knuckles tightened his hold; if the fox left the protection of the Master Emerald, he would die. "Tough it out, kid!"

Through the now blinding green light, he felt Tails push closer to him and for once Knuckles didn't object, even welcomed the contact.

For his part, Tails was in more pain than he'd ever thought could exist in the world, even worse than when they'd broken his tail and wrist back down in the tunnels. He could feel every single hair on his body as a separate nerve ending, could feel a kind of incandescent heat surging rhythmically through his body like a pulse, getting stronger and more agonising with every beat.

Knuckles, who never felt the power of the Master Emerald as anything stronger than a mild attack of pins and needles, shifted his arm around Tails, holding the fox close to him as the room they were in started to shake.

"Knux, what's happening?" Tails yelled above the noise.

"It's the Master Emerald! It's trying to shield the whole of Angel Island!" Knuckles had no doubt that it could do it either, but he wasn't sure how long it would be before he and Tails could leave the massive gem.

It was a full ten minutes before Knuckles knew instinctively that it was safe to pull away from the Master Emerald. Next to him, Tails' body abruptly went limp, ears flat against his skull.

"Is it gone?" he said hoarsely.

"The Void?" Knuckles said, almost too quietly to hear. "Yeah, kid. It's gone."

"And...and Sonic?"

The echidna shook his head very slowly. "I don't know. The Egg Carrier vanished, didn't it? Maybe Sonic's safe."

Tails looked up at Knuckles. "But he's still with Robotnik, isn't he?"

"Yeah. Yeah, he is."

The fox shivered. "Knux, what if Robotnik cripples him again?"

Knuckles hesitated. "If he does, he does," he said finally.

"You'll help him, right? Right?"

"Yeah." Knuckles rubbed the fox's shoulder. "Yeah, I will. If it comes to it." Something struck him and he frowned suddenly. "Hey."

Tails looked up at him nervously. "What?"

"You're healed."

The fox blinked groggily. "I am?"

"Yeah. How's your tail feeling?"

Tails tried to wiggle it experimentally, then beamed up at the echidna. "It works!" The beam dropped off his face as he added, "But…how?"

"The Chaos energy," Knuckles said, glancing at the Master Emerald, the glow from it having dimmed to a mere ember, then back at Tails. "Guess it patched you up."

Tails hesitated. "Should I thank it?"

"It's a rock, not a nurse," the echidna said succinctly. "I guess something must have triggered it to heal you as well as protect the Island."

Tails frowned. "So how come you didn't use it before?"

Knuckles rolled his eyes – it wasn't the first time Tails had brought this up – then sighed. "Because it needs time to recharge! The Chaos power isn't infinite, kid."

As if in agreement, the last vestiges of power faded from the Master Emerald and Angel Island started to fall.

**Okay, so that was Knuckles' choice for you :P Happy now? Anyway, next chapter is the final one (at least for this story) and in the meantime, if you read this one, please review!**


	16. Into the Void

Riven: Of course not ;) (sighs) Though I really wish now that I hadn't changed the events leading up to that…there might've been a lot more doubt if I had ;)

**Matri90: Glad to hear it ;)**

**Private somebody: (blushes) Thanks :D (innocent look) Me? ME? Surely not! ;) (Okay, maybe a little, but it wasn't MY idea to give Sonic a little kid sidekick to take into battle with him :P) As for Knuckles rescuing his sister…well, at the moment I think he's a little more concerned with his home falling thousands of feet through the air…there's no guarantee he's going to land in water ;)**

**Asher Tye: (laughs hysterically) Oh man, I LOVE that idea:D A Master Emerald with the hump…the possibilities are endless! (_Tails: What possibilities? It just makes the island go SPLAT!_) Yeah, I think Knuckles does have a sensitive side to him, he's just never worked out how to show it :P Saving Sonic and Bait…read on (weg)**

**TC Chan: I think _I'd_ walk out on the story if Tails started going through the whole Sonic-is-dead routine again, never mind Knuckles! And I'm glad I managed to surprise at least one person with the last chapter :P As to the Void…read on ;)**

**Hawk's Soul: (blushes again) Wow, thanks :D And yes, this is the final chapter BUT the story continues in the sequel, so the saga isn't over yet ;) (far from it :P)**

**BlueCheetah: (laughs) Well, I would, but I think you only really love me for my stories (joke back atcha!) And you'll find out about the Egg Carrier very soon ;) As to the rest of it…look, if crippling Sonic, enslaving Tails and breathing life into the character that is Raker means I have a sadistic mind…hmm, I see your point. Okay. I have a sadistic mind :P**

**Maverick87: (goes bright red) Aw…thanks :)**

**Kj: Thanks :) And...okay, is this fast enough for you? ;) As for the rest of it, yes, I probably did say two stories :P I have no idea how many stories are going to be in this series...as long as I can keep thinking of ideas, I'll keep writing them :) I know what the sequel to _Sins_ is going to be about and I know what the sequel to the sequel to _Sins_ is going to be about, so...yeah, I guess I musta said two stories ;)**

**Matt Lans: (grins) That sounds like something Sonic would say ;) (_Sonic: Who? Me?_)**

**PyroHedgehog4Ever: (raises eyebrows) Maybe, maybe not ;) You'll find out in time :P**

**Shadow-spawn180:P Well, I thought it was about time I cleared up the issue of Sonic's finances ;) As to the rest, you'll find out soon ;)**

**D.C. 111: Thanks :) And yes, there will be a sequel (posted at the same time as this final chapter :P)**

My Memoirs by Me 

_I found Bait! Thank the Emeralds, although the kid looks like he's been put through a steam mangle. He's emaciated – granted he's always been a little on the scrawny side, but nothing as bad as this! – and scalded in places, and he looks like Raker's used him for a football. Given the shape of the cage he was in, I wouldn't put it past him._

_Worst of all is the kid's left hand. The fingers on it are not only broken, they're somehow...twisted, as though Raker snapped them and then decided to play with them some more for good measure._

_--Sonic the Hedgehog_

There was no sound, no obvious change except for the fact that the room took on an almost rainbow hue, different colours reflecting off the metal surfaces.

"What...?" Sonic's voice sounded tinny and oddly distorted, as though he was talking underwater.

"You _fool_!" Robotnik slammed a hand into the table, flipping it up and over. "You reckless fool, Sonic! You've damned us all!"

"Look, doc, I don't have time for all this melodrama," Sonic said sharply. "What'd you do?"

Seeing that they appeared safe from the Void for some reason, Robotnik rapidly regained his composure. "To be honest, Sonic, I think it's more a case of what _didn't_ I do."

Sonic shifted his weight – Bait had fallen asleep in his arms and seemed to be growing heavier by the second – and raised an eye ridge. "Oh yeah? And what might that be?"

"I was going to try and steer us out of trouble, for your information." Now Robotnik looked distinctly injured, the look of a liar who – for once – is telling the truth.

"You expect me to believe that?"

"Yes!"

"Tough." Sonic fixed the doctor with an icy look. "I'm taking Bait, and I'm walking out that door with him, Robotnik. Try and stop me and I'll slice you and your precious fortress to pieces."

"Ah." Robotnik stretched up complacently. "Well, that could present a problem."

"The hell you say." Sonic adjusted his hold on Bait. "Get out the way, doc."

"My dear Sonic, I have no intention of stopping you if you really want to leave. But you'd do well to take a look outside first."

"Outside?" Wary and suspecting a trap at any minute, Sonic edged over to the window and peered out.

A myriad of colours assailed his vision, shifting and dancing in more hues than the hedgehog had ever known existed, too fast to really focus on them. It was startlingly beautiful, but Sonic barely even noticed.

"What did you do?" he demanded of Robotnik, who sighed.

"As I said, it's not what I did so much as what I didn't. I was trying to steer us away from this thing when you distracted me." The doctor smirked. "Of course, Sonic, if you still wish to step outside the Egg Carrier, please be my guest."

Sonic glanced at him, then back at the window. "What _is_ that out there?"

"Well, I'm dashed if I know, Sonic, to tell you the truth," Robotnik admitted candidly. "But whatever it is, if my instruments are accurate – and they are – it's taking us a very, very long way from home."

**Okay, very short I know, but I couldn't really put much more in this chapter without ruining the beginning of the sequel _Into the Void_ :) which was posted very shortly after this part :)**


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